Andy Cohen and Anderson Cooper rang in 2024 with some boozing on live television — bringing back alcohol consumption to CNN after staying sober for last year’s New Year’s Eve broadcast.
“It’s the top of the hour and we’ve been here for seven years doing this, and for most of those years at the top of the hour we typically have a toast,” Cohen said early on in the broadcast, turning to Cooper. “I’m hearing from a lot of people…does Daddy get his juice?”
“Can Daddy get his juice responsibly?” Cooper asked, before Cohen pulled out a bottle of tequila and shot glasses, and both imbibed to start the show.
Back in November 2022, then-CEO Chris Licht announced that CNN would be dialing down alcohol consumption for its New Year’s telecast. Regular host Cohen was quick to claim that that rule, in fact, did not apply to him as a host, though he and Cooper elected to take shots of non-alcoholic beverages like buttermilk and pickle juice in solidarity with the rest of the staff.
“CNN said the correspondents will not be drinking,” Cohen said. “Anderson and I will be the people partying on CNN, [though] we will be partying responsibly.”
Cohen was quick to get ahead of things in recent months, publicly imploring CNN, now under new CEO Mark Thompson, to allow on-air drinking for this year’s broadcast.
“I haven’t heard anything yet, but come on, they need to let us drink,” Cohen told E! News in November. “It’s New Year’s Eve. That didn’t go well last year in terms of viewer happiness about us drinking. People really cared and I hope CNN gives the people what they want.”
Both Cohen and Cooper played coy about the matter in an appearance on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” during the final weeks of the year, with the CNN anchor declaring, “I think you’re going to have to tune in and see.”
During the New Year’s telecast that rang in 2022, an inebriated Cohen dissed ABC’s “New Year’s Rockin’ Eve” and its host, Ryan Seacrest, calling Seacrest and his crew a “group of losers.” Afterwards, Seacrest told Entertainment Weekly that he didn’t know how drinking on air became a “tradition” and limiting alcohol consumption on the show was “probably a good idea,” addressing Cohen’s roast.
Cohen did end up apologizing. On his SiriusXM radio show, he said, “The only thing that I regret saying, the only thing is that I slammed the ABC broadcast and I really like Ryan Seacrest and he’s a great guy … I really regret saying that, and I was just stupid and drunk and feeling it,” Cohen finished.
