Andy Cohen Says He’ll Be Drinking on CNN on New Year’s Eve

Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen will be back to host CNN’s New Year’s Eve broadcast Saturday night, with drinks in hand. Although Variety reported last month that the new CNN leadership wanted its stars to hold off on alcoholic drinks, Cohen told PopCulture.com that rule does not apply to him or Cooper. During last year’s show, Cohen went on a drunken rant that included insulting Ryan Seacrest.

“People thought that I wasn’t going to be drinking,” Cohen told PopCulture in November, during a chat about his new partnership with FRESCA Mixed. “I’m like, ‘Have you met me?’ I will be drinking responsibly on New Year’s Eve, but I will be leaning into the spirit of the night as I always do.” The Watch What Happens Live host said he and Cooper were “actively planning” to ring in 2023, but were still hoping to bring the “spontaneity” people love.

Cohen similarly told Rolling Stone that the no-drinks policy is only for correspondents. “My job is to take Anderson out of his comfort zone [and] my job is to be a party ringleader for everyone watching us on New Year’s Eve,” Cohen said. “And that is what I will continue to do. And as a matter of fact… If the correspondents are not drinking this year, I will be partying even harder on their behalf.”

In our interview with Cohen, he described Cooper as a “lightweight” and said he was glad there was an exception for the two main hosts. “He’s kind of a lightweight, he’s not a natural drinker,” he told us. “And so I think it’s always a journey for people to see him responding to my level of enjoyment.”

During a town hall with CNN employees, new CNN chief Chris Licht said on-camera drinking would be banned during the 2022/2023 New Year’s Eve broadcast, sources told Variety. Licht believed it damaged the credibility and “respectability” they have among CNN viewers. CNN did not publicly comment on the policy, which seemed to be in response to Cohen’s rant or Don Lemon’s behavior during the 12:30 a.m. hour.

Seacrest, who hosts ABC’s Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve, told Entertainment Weekly this week that it was a “good idea” for CNN to scale back the on-camera drinking. “There’s some pretty respectable people or at least one, right? I think there’s a serious journalist and then a friend of mine who has a lot of fun, but it’s probably a good idea. Although the viewers probably wish they would drink more.”