Andy Cohen Says He Was 'Butching It Up' at the Start of WWHL to Make Up for Being the Only Gay Man on Late-Night

Andy Cohen admitted he felt self-conscious about being the only gay person on late-night TV when he first launched Watch What Happens Live in 2009.

"The first two years I'm really sitting there and I'm quite, if I can say it, masculine," Cohen, 56, told best friend Anderson Cooper at a Tribeca Talk as part of the Tribeca Film Festival on Wednesday, June 12. "I don't know what happened to me, but I am absolutely like Charlie in the Box now, whatever that Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer thing. I'm like a psycho on the air now, and I'm like, 'When did it all go so crazy for me? When did I get this hyper on the show?' Because I was very calm." 

The Bravo personality tossed out a theory about why he changed over the years.

"I wonder if I was kind of butching it up because I was conscious of being the only gay person doing it and I felt like I had to present or something," Cohen said at The OKX Theater at BMCC TPAC. "I don't know. But I do notice that is different and my hair was black."

The Daddy Diaries author eventually found his groove.

"I used to think to myself, 'What I really would like to do in life is be able to be myself on TV,'" Cohen said. "And so it's incredible that I have come to a place where I am exactly myself on TV in a show of my own fantasy in this setting that is built off of a room in my home with tchotchkes of mine from years and years around me. And so it is really an incredible thing."

Later this month, Cohen will celebrate 15 years of his Bravo late-night show with a primetime special that will feature “hilarious hijinks, unpredictable surprises and a jam-packed lineup of celebrity and Bravolebrity guests,” according to a release from Bravo.

Bravo and Cohen fell under scrutiny earlier this year when multiple Housewives sued the network for misconduct. One suit filed by former Real Housewife of New York City star Leah McSweeney claimed Cohen played a role in fostering an allegedly toxic workplace culture and discrimination.

Last month, the father of two filed a request to dismiss 41-year-old McSweeney's previous claims that she had faced sex/gender, religious and disability discrimination in a "hostile work environment."

During the talk with Cooper, 57, on June 12, Cohen said when asked by an audience member about increasingly litigious talent that "the truth is the truth."

"We are proud of how we conduct ourselves and how we produce these shows," Cohen stated. "That’s it. We just keep going."

Cohen continued to host WWHL and multiple Bravo reunions, as well as his SiriusXM radio show, while NBC investigated the misconduct allegations against him. The network concluded in May that “the claims were found to be unsubstantiated," and Bravo renewed Watch Happens Live through 2025.

Cooper told Vulture earlier this month that, while Cohen makes his success "look easy," the Bravo star "is paddling really, really fast under the water.” During their Tribeca discussion , Cooper claimed his quote had been taken out of context.

"What I said was, I said that I don't think that Andy gets the credit that he deserves for how he's working harder than anybody I know," the CNN anchor said. "He makes it all look fun and he's having fun with people and it seems all great. And I said, like the cliché about the duck paddling really, really fast underneath the surface of the water, he's working really hard."

Cohen said he thought Cooper gave "a really good quote" that he "absolutely loved," until it became about him trying to save his career amid the allegations.

"There's more than a whiff of desperation," Cooper said. "That was not my intention."

Cohen admitted to putting his own foot in his mouth when it came to talking publicly about his close friend Cooper.

"I was on Live with Kelly the week before and they asked me about playdates with our kids and I said something like, 'It annoys me how perfect your kids are,'" Cohen recalled. "Well, that standing alone, 'Andy Cohen is annoyed by Anderson Cooper's children.'"

The father of Wyatt, 4, and Sebastian, 2, confessed that statement "did give me pause for a moment."

"He was really busy that day and I didn't hear from him," Cohen said. "And then the next day I texted him, I'm like, 'Are you mad at me?' "

Cooper was not mad at him, and in fact, Cooper had nothing but kind words to say about Cohen during their discussion.

"What I love about Andy is that he is the person ... he has built an entire career on everything he's interested in," Cooper told the audience. "It's very rare that you're actually able to build a public career on something that is ... It's usually somebody acting or a variation of who that person actually is." 

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Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen airs Sunday through Thursday nights on Bravo (check local listings). The WWHL 15th anniversary primetime special airs Sunday, June 30, at 9 p.m. ET on Bravo and will stream on Peacock the following day.