Andy Cohen and Anderson Cooper rang in 2024 with some booze on live TV – bringing drinking back to CNN after staying sober on the New Year's Eve show last year.
“It's the highest hour, and we've been doing this for seven years, and for most of those years we usually toast on the hour,” Cohen said at the start of the broadcast, addressing Cooper. “I hear 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 they both drank to start the show.
Back in November 2022, then-CEO Chris Licht announced that CNN would reduce alcohol consumption in its New Year's broadcast. Regular host Cohen was quick to claim that this rule actually didn't apply to him as host, although he and Cooper decided to drink non-alcoholic drinks like buttermilk and pickle juice in solidarity with the rest of the staff.
“CNN said the correspondents wouldn’t drink,” Cohen said. “Anderson and I will be the people celebrating on CNN, [though] We will celebrate responsibly.”
Cohen has moved quickly in recent months, publicly imploring CNN, now under new CEO Mark Thompson, to allow drinking on television for this year's broadcast.
“I haven't heard anything yet, but come on, they have to let us drink,” Cohen told E! News in November. “It's New Year's Eve. Things didn't go well last year in terms of audience satisfaction with our drinking. People really cared and I hope CNN gives people what they want.”
Both Cohen and Cooper remained coy about the matter during an appearance on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” in the final weeks of the year, with the CNN host stating, “I think you'll have to tune in and see.”
During the 2022 New Year's broadcast, a drunken Cohen criticized ABC's “New Year's Rockin' Eve” and its host Ryan Seacrest, calling Seacrest and his crew a “bunch of losers.” Afterward, Seacrest told Entertainment Weekly that he didn't know how drinking became a “tradition” on the show and that limiting alcohol consumption on the show was “probably a good idea,” addressing Cohen's roast.
In the end, Cohen apologized. On his SiriusXM radio show, he said: “The only thing I regret, the only thing I have to say is that I was harshly critical of the ABC show, and I really like Ryan Seacrest and he's a great guy… I “I really regret saying that and that's just how it was.” “Stupid and drunk and I feel it,” Cohen concluded.