American journalist, television personality, and author, also noted as “the most prominent openly gay journalist on American television” according to The New York Times. He is the primary anchor of the CNN news show Anderson Cooper 360° since 2003. In addition, he is a correspondent for 60 Minutes. From September 2011 to May 2013, he also served as host of his own eponymous syndicated daytime talk show, Anderson Live.
He is from a noted family, the second of two sons born to Gloria Vanderbilt and her fourth husband, Wyatt Emory Cooper. His father died in 1978 during surgery for a heart ailment. His brother Carter was in treatment for depression when he leaped from the 14th floor window of his mother’s New York apartment on 22 July 1988. He has two half-brothers from his mother’s second marriage to Leopold Stokowski.
Anderson graduated from the Dalton School and enrolled in Yale in 1985, from where he graduated in 1989 with a degree in political science.
As a journalist, Anderson began news reporting for Channel One. By 1993 he found himself in such global hot spots as Somalia and Bosnia. He worked on ABC’s 20/20 Downtown before making his way up to co-anchor of ABC’s World News Now in 1999. On 9 January 2001, he debuted as the host of The Mole, a “reality” game show.
On 23 May 2006, the journalist’s memoir was released, Dispatches from the Edge: A Memoir of War, Disasters, and Survival, the book details his personal and professional saga.
After he missed two days of work, the TV journalist revealed that he had had a cancerous growth removed from under his left eye on 17 March 2008.
Cooper is openly gay, having come out publicly in 2012. In March 2018, Cooper confirmed that he and his long-time boyfriend Benjamin Maisani had split up, having first dated in 2009. Cooper’s first son, Wyatt Morgan, was born via surrogate on 27 April 2020. On 10 February 2022, Cooper announced that his second son, Sebastian Luke Maisani-Cooper, had recently been born also by surrogate.
Link to Wikipedia biography