Anderson Cooper's 360° Net Worth Overview
Tragic Details About Anderson Cooper
Born On the Right Side Of the Tracks
Anderson Cooper was born on June 3rd, 1967, in New York City. His father was Wyatt Cooper, an author, screenwriter, and moderately successful actor perhaps best remembered for his written depictions of Dorothy Parker. Anderson’s mother was Gloria Vanderbilt, an actress and author herself but also a fashion designer of great repute. You may remember when she revolutionized what women expected from their blue jeans in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Cornelius Vanderbilt
Image Source: History.com
Gloria Vanderbilt was a direct descendant of Cornelius Vanderbilt, the railroad magnate of the late 19th century. You probably heard his name a time or two in your American History classes in high school alongside Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller as one of the richest, most ruthless businessmen of the century.
Like Carnegie and Rockefeller, Vanderbilt in many ways revolutionized what “big business” actually meant and how it worked. Labeled as “captains of industry” and “robber barons” in equal measure, history still hasn’t entirely figured out how to feel about men of such innovation and stature and so little concern for who they destroyed along the way.
As the son of high society, Anderson grew up in a world of celebrities, sophistication, and the arts. He worked briefly as a child model, appearing in several national ad campaigns for companies like Macy’s and Ralph Lauren. His education began at the prestigious Dalton School of New York City, and life was good.
Then, when Anderson was 10, his father died during open-heart surgery, rocking Anderson’s world in the worst way. He grew closer to his mother and his brother, Carter, and eventually graduated from Dalton and began studying political science at Yale and interning with the CIA.
Yes, that CIA.
In 1988, ten years after his father’s death, Carter Cooper went to visit his mother in her high rise New York apartment. They chatted amicably for a few minutes, then without warning he walked out to the 14th story balcony and threw himself over the edge. The experience shattered Gloria and left Anderson questioning what he was doing with his own life. He explained years later that he became fixated on the question of personal survival. Why do some people survive, and others don’t?
“This Is Anderson Cooper, Reporting For – Um… Me”
Shortly after graduating from Yale, Anderson faked a press pass, bought a video camera, and traveled on his own dime to Myanmar (“Burma”), a nation just east of India and southwest of China – near Vietnam, for those of us who didn’t do so great on the world geography portion of the test. The political situation, then as now, was messy and complicated, but the short version is that the government was trying to crush opposition from students, refugees, and the usual assortment of downtrodden folks with nothing to lose. Anderson filmed his own reports on events, seemingly oblivious to the dangers, and sold several of them to Channel One, which then incorporated them into public school news broadcasts.
In other words, Anderson Cooper’s first real reporting gig was done largely independently and relied on his willingness to put himself in harm’s way to get to the heart of each story and explain them in ways normal people could immediately understand. In complicated times, that’s no small thing. Channel One promoted Cooper to full-time correspondent and he spent the next four years covering conflicts and other international news in Bosnia, Haiti, Somalia, South Africa, and more.
From there it was a gradual climb through the system. Cooper co-anchored “World News Now” for ABC, did a brief stint hosting a silly reality show, and eventually ended up at CNN. It took proving himself repeatedly over the years in a variety of contexts before audiences came to both recognize and trust him.
Anderson Cooper reporting on Hurricane Katrina
Image Source: New York Magazine
Cooper’s handling of several major events, including the double whammy in 2004 of the death of former President Reagan and the presidential elections that same year which pitted George W. Bush and John Kerry, only increased his role at CNN. His on-site coverage of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 cemented him as one of the best-known personalities on any of the major news networks.
Making His Own Name
Despite coming from both fame and money, Anderson Cooper is primarily known today for what he’s actually done and is doing – not for how he blows the money he’s inherited. Granted, you can’t realistically talk about Anderson Cooper net worth without factoring in family money, but until his mother actually died, Cooper didn’t even expect an inheritance. He seemed fine with this arrangement. As he explained to radio talk show host Howard Stern in 2014:
“I think it’s an initiative sucker, I think it’s a curse. Who’s inherited a lot of money that has gone on to do things in their own life? From the time I was growing up, if I felt that there was some pot of gold waiting for me, I don’t know that I would have been so motivated.”
So I guess that’s great news for any of the rest of us who don’t anticipate a multi-million dollar inheritance. Don’t you feel super-motivated by the way it’s not coming for you either?
As it turned out, when Gloria Vanderbilt passed away in 2019, she left the majority of her estate to Anderson – and very much not to her other two surviving sons, one of whom received a nice little home and the other… nada. (So there’s a Hollywood Insider waiting to be made.) After so many years of philanthropy and high living, however, the total he inherited was only around $1.5 million – emphasis on “only.” By that time, he had his own millions.
There’s still little evidence that for Anderson Cooper's net worth is really a motivator. He seems genuinely driven by a desire to get to the heart of each and every story he covers. That doesn’t mean he’s any more balanced or evolved than the rest of us, but it does suggest that while the money is no doubt nice, for Anderson Cooper net worth is secondary.
So What Is Anderson Cooper‘s Net Worth?
This is actually a tricky question. It’s actually not all that surprising that we’re not entirely sure exactly how much Anderson Cooper’s net worth is at this exact moment. What’s odd is that we’re able to calculate it with such accuracy with so many other public figures that we’ve come to expect it to simply be laying around on scribbled on a napkin he left somewhere or something.
A fancy monogramed silk napkin, of course.
Here’s what we do know about Anderson Cooper’s net worth and all:
We know that his base salary at CNN for his primary show, Anderson Cooper 360, he makes around $12 million per year. It’s possible there’s additional compensation for things like hosting the New Year’s Eve programming every year (with Andy Cohen) or showing up to do commentary or on-site reporting for other shows within the family. CNN also allows him to contribute his unique reports to 60 minutes, many of which focus on the same intense people or dangerous circumstances that drew him to the business in the first place. That’s a few million more each year.
We know that for Anderson Cooper’s net worth had to have received a nice bump from his writing over the years, including the publication of two books:
In 2006, he wrote Dispatches From the Edge about his life and being a reporter, particularly his experiences in Iraq, Africa, Sri Lanka, and during Hurricane Katrina.
In 2017, he co-authored The Rainbow Comes and Goes: A Mother and Son on Life, Love, and Loss with his mother, shortly before she passed. It hit the best-seller lists almost instantly.
Anderson Cooper and his mother
Image Source: Los Angeles Times
We know that Cooper has periodically done other things which would contribute to total Anderson Cooper’s net worth. In 2011, he acted as narrator for the Broadway revival of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (starring Harry Potter’s Daniel Radcliff). In 2015, he began doing a travelling “conversational stage show” with Andy Cohen which continued for several years and worked around their existing schedules.
We know that he grew up in a family that had sufficient money for him to focus on what he wanted to do with his life rather than working to make ends meet or taking out huge loans to pay for college, a car, somewhere to live, etc. We know that, while he’s clearly comfortable with high society stuff as circumstances require, there are no scandalous photos of him partying on the beach with co-eds, no TMZ reports of wild spending or doing other weird things celebrities sometimes do, and no ex-boyfriends suing for their share of anything.
In other words, by all indications, he’s always lived and still lives responsibly and more or less debt free. Naturally debt would be subtracted from overall Anderson Cooper's net worth if he had any. There’s no indication he does.
Finally, of course, we know he inherited that unexpected $1.5 million from mom only a few short years ago.
Most experts compute total Anderson Cooper's net worth at right around $250 million in 2024.
How Does Anderson Cooper’s Net Worth Compare?
If the $200 million figure is accurate, this makes Cooper easily the richest news personality in the U.S. today. If you count Sean Hannity as news (which it sort of is, in the same way professional wrestling is sort of a sport), his net worth as around $120 million. Diane Sawyer comes in third with $80 million. That means total Anderson Cooper net worth, by most estimates, is roughly equal to the next to closest news personalities combined.
Yes, he grew up with money. Let’s be realistic about the advantages of going to the schools he attended, gaining the exposure and life experiences he did early on, living with no need to borrow, and learning to walk in so many different worlds comfortably. But let’s also remember what a small portion of total Anderson Cooper net worth came directly from his inheritance. Most of the rest he’s earned over the years.
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Cooper wouldn’t break the top 25 highest net worth musicians. He might sneak in around #50 on a ranking of highest net worth actors, depending on the year. He’d probably be in the running for the top 25 if we took his two books as sufficient qualification to count him as an author (although opening that list to everyone who’s ever had their name on a book, regardless of what they really do for a living, gets messy).
In any case, he’s doing OK.
Lessons Learned from Anderson Cooper’s Net Worth
Well, try to be born rich is certainly a good one, although not something most of us can actually control, it seems. I’d still like to think there are lessons we can draw from Anderson’s life and success, however.
1. The most obvious one is not to be afraid of doing what you love instead of what you think you’re supposed to.
If you can find a way to make a living at something you have an actual passion for, you’re more likely to do it well and take it further than if you stick with what’s expected of you.
2. Success doesn’t mean you have to get weird and do stupid things.
Money gives us the power to unleash our inner drunk, irresponsible teenager, but it also gives us the opportunity to help others, invest wisely, and plan for the future. Cooper had every excuse for living wild or being reckless with his money. By all accounts he didn’t.
3. Finally, live your best life.
As you continue to figure out who you are and what you’re about, don’t be afraid to take a few personal risks even if they won’t all work. They don’t have to be wasteful or careless – the biggest risks are often emotional or hurt our pride more than our bank account. Sometimes we’ll realize that hosting a reality show or joining the CIA isn’t for us and have to change course – and that’s OK.
If you’d like help with your net worth, we can probably help. Debt reduction, practical investments, saving money on insurance, or better understanding different financial institutions, just let us know what’s on your mind and maybe the Goalry mall can help point you towards your next step. You may be closer than you think.