Media personality Anderson Cooper verbally pimp slapped Star Jones on Thursday for comments the talk show host made about his coming out. The comments were made during Cooper’s show “Anderson Live” after being asked by Bravo’s Andy Cohen if Cooper felt any different since revealing his sexual preference.
“I will say—and I actually haven’t mentioned this —the only thing that did kind of annoy me and actually it annoyed my mom who brought it up to me, Star Jones of all people,” Cooper said. “I haven’t thought about Star Jones in I don’t know how long. I was unaware she was on TV still.”
The son of designer and blue-blood Gloria Vanderbilt, Cooper came out in a letter he emailed to Andrew Sullivan. Sullivan published the letter on his blog with Cooper’s consent. The coming out confirmed what had been speculated for years and Cooper never denied. Jones dismissed Cooper’s confession as a ploy to boost his ratings.
“If I was wanting to boost ratings, I would have waited to announce it on a ‘very special episode’ that would have been promo-ed for weeks and weeks,” Cooper told Cohen. “As memory serves, in terms of boosting ratings, I seem to recall [Star] hocking her wedding every single day to get free products when she was on ‘The View’ and I seem to recall her lying about her gastric bypass surgery and making everybody else lie about it as well. So for her to suddenly emerge out of the shadows and suddenly attack me for this, I couldn’t believe it.”
Cooper and Cohen were also joined by Queen Latifah, Phylicia Rashad, Alfre Woodard and Jill Scott on Thursday’s show. The stars were promoting the all-black remake of “Steel Magnolias” which airs Sunday at 9 pm ET/PT on Lifetime. During the show, Anderson made another confession—he’s never seen any version of “Steel Magnolias.” This prompted the Queen to ask Cooper if he’d seen other gay classics such as “Terms of Endearment” or “Beaches.” When he said he had not, the Queen said his gay card had been “revoked.”
Vierers were quick to catch the irony. “Considering that Queen Latifah isn’t ‘openly’ gay, watching that segment was kind of surreal—two gay men and a closeted lesbian chatting about a gay membership card,” wrote one viewer on Gawker. Another wrote: “As a gay man, I cringe when I hear ‘gay card.’ I resent that QL and Andy Cohen are perpetuating stereotypes.”
