Andy Cohen's Net Worth is Bravo
Andy Cohen's net worth is estimated to be about $50 million in 2024. He is best known for being the Executive Producer of the television franchise The Real Housewives and all its spin-offs.
He also has a late-night talk show on the Bravo network called Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen and is the host of the radio show called Andy Cohen Live on SiriusXM channel 102. He hosted the revival of the Love Connection on Fox, but that game show reboot only ran for two seasons. It was canceled due to low ratings.
The Art of the Interview with Andy Cohen
The Secret Life Of Andy Cohen
For most of his career, Cohen kept much of his personal life secret. It took a while for him to become comfortable publicly revealing his sexuality as a gay man. Cohen was afraid of his parent’s reaction to his coming out.
Cohen is the first openly gay late-night talk show host. He is shy about discussing his personal relationships. He is not married or in a committed relationship. He has a son that was birthed by a surrogate mother in 2019.
It has been said by his distracters that the only thing Cohen really loves is his fame.
Growing Up
Image Source: Classmates.com
There is little revealed about Andy Cohen’s early life except that he was Jewish, born on June 2, 1968, in St. Louis, Missouri. He graduated from Clayton High School in 1986. He became the class president during his sophomore year. He was on the yearbook staff. Photos from his high school yearbook are charming. He was a handsome young man, popular, and, perhaps, a bit of a clown.
Cohen has a degree in journalism from Boston University. He wrote articles for the university newspaper, The Daily Free Press. He started his career in television by working as an intern at CBS.
Andy Cohen’s Net Worth From Television
Much of Andy Cohen’s net worth comes from his work in television. He worked at CBS for ten years, rising through the ranks to become a senior producer of The Early Show. He was also a producer for both 48 Hours and CBS This Morning. In 2000, he left CBS to join the network called Trio.
Bravo bought Trio in 2004 and elevated Cohen to the position of Vice President of Original Programming. In 2004 and 2009, he won Peabody Awards for the documentary The N-Word and Project Runway.
Cohen eventually became the executive producer of Bravo’s Real Housewives franchise. In the early 2010s, he was the producer and director of the Top Chef cooking completion show. From 2011 to 2013, he hosted the Miss USA beauty pageants. In 2011 and 2012, he hosted the Miss Universe pageant. In 2013, he turned down the deal to host the Miss Universe pageant to be broadcast from Russia due to Russia’s homophobic discrimination and anti-gay legislation.
In addition to his skills as a television producer, Cohen is an excellent talk show host. He made regular appearances on the Today Show and Morning Joe. He was the co-host of Live! With Kelly and The View.
He appeared as himself on many television shows, including Sex and the City, Sesame Street, RuPaul’s Drag Race, Alpha House, The Comeback, Lip Sync Battle, Inside Amy Schumer, Nightcap, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Riverdale, Saturday Night Live, and others.
In the summer of 2009, he started hosting a weekly late-night talk show called Watch What Happens Live that expanded to being aired nightly.
The Funniest A-List Celebrity Moments on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen | Bravo
Andy Cohen’s Net Worth From Radio
SiriusXM launched a new radio channel, 102, in 2015 that Cohen curates. They call it Radio Andy. The channel has shows hosted by Cohen and by other celebrities, including Sandra Bernhard, Jeff Lewis, Jim Parsons, Amy Phillips, Dan Rather, Bevy Smith, and Jonathan Alter with his family.
Friendship With Anderson Cooper
Though never romantically involved with each other, Andy Cohen and Anderson Cooper are great friends. He hosted the 2018, 2019, and 2020 CNN New Year’s Eve show with Anderson Cooper replacing Kathy Griffin, who got fired.
Cohen and Cooper went on the road with a live tour of a conversational stage show called AC2. Audiences saw the show in over 50 American cities. They also produced a behind-the-scenes radio special called AC2 Live: Andy and Anderson on the Road about what happened when they went on tour.
Both men have sons. Cohen’s son is named Ben. Cooper’s son is Wyatt. During the pandemic outbreak in June 2020, the two young boys and their dads had a virtual meet-up on the Watch What Happens Live show. It is hilarious to see the doting fathers with their kids sharing their friendship on Father’s Day.
Anderson Cooper & Andy Cohen’s Sons’ Virtual Meet & Greet | WWHL
Andy Cohen’s Net Worth From Publishing
In 2012, Cohen released his first memoir entitled Most Talkative. It quickly became a best-seller. He published The Andy Cohen Diaries in 2014 and Superficial in 2016. Both follow-up memoirs also became best-sellers.
LGBTQ And Family Rights
Since he came out, Cohen has been an outspoken supporter of LGBTQ rights. Out magazine named Cohen one of the Most Powerful Gay People.
Cohen campaigned in the state of New York in support of the Child-Parent Security Act. The legislation was to repeal the prohibition and criminalization of compensated surrogate arrangements. The effort stalled out. It was not brought up for a vote in the 2019 legislative session.
Cohen, who lives in New York, had to use a paid surrogate mother in Los Angeles to birth his son.
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Female Celebrities Who Despise Andy Cohen
If you think there is a love fest for Andy Cohen and everyone thinks he is terrific, you would be wrong. Many female celebrities absolutely despise him, or so I’ve been told.
Comedian Kathy Griffin Thinks Cohen is a “Jerk”
Griffin is quoted as saying that when Cohen was her boss for ten years, overseeing her Bravo show called Life on the D-List, he treated her like a “dog” in a deeply misogynistic (woman-hating) way.
Their feud increased when Cohen replaced Griffin as the host on CNN’s New Year’s Eve telecast. Griffin lost the job because of the controversy when she released a photo of herself holding a mockup of Donald Trump’s severed head with blood dripping from it. Cohen responded to Griffin’s anger by saying he was happy and at peace even if Griffin hates him.
Jillian Michaels Thinks Cohen is “Awful”
Jillian Michaels is the fitness guru who drives the contestants on The Biggest Loser to lose massive amounts of weight by taking a tough-love approach. Michaels thinks Cohen created the Real Housewives series because he hates women. At various times, she called him an “asshole,” “rude,” “condescending,” unprofessional, and “truly hideous.”
About Housewives, Michaels said that she hates to see women tearing each other apart. She says that anyone who watches the show should be ashamed of themselves.
Their fight escalated after Michaels appeared on the Watch What Happens Live in 2013. After that appearance, Cohen trashed her in an “Ask Andy” segment on Reality Tea. Cohen said she was mean when she appeared on his show and treated the staff like contestants on The Biggest Loser.
NeNe Leakes Thinks Cohen is “Shady”
NeNe Leakes, who stars in the spinoff television show The Real Housewives of Atlanta, had also fought with Cohen and got into a public spat with him during 2015 when she appeared on Watch What Happens Live. Cohen took a social media controversy about Leakes' failure to make a promised donation to the Detroit public schools and threw it in her face on the show.
The next day, Cohen complained about Leakes on the “Ask Andy” segment on the show Reality Tea. Cohen said that Leakes' friends told her Cohen was “shady.” Then, Cohen added that his Twitter fans said Leakes had been nasty to him on the show.
In 2019, Cohen insulted Leakes in public by saying she repeated one of her looks on The Real Housewives of Atlanta. This expanded their feud via Twitter. In February 2020, Leakes announced she was considering filing a legal action against Bravo, claiming that her bad relationship with Cohen was part of the reason.
Vicki Gunvalson Accused Cohen of “Ageism”
Vicki Gunvalson starred in The Real Housewives of Orange County until she was fired by Cohen, along with her co-star Tamra Judge, after the 14th season.
Gunvalson revealed what happened on her podcast called Whoop It Up with Vicki. Gunvalson said that Cohen fired her and Judge because the show got too expensive and that he said the viewers were ready for “younger blood.” Gunvalson said this made her very sad, and she hoped the fans of The Real Housewives would not forget her.
Cohen Made Tamra Judge Cry
Along with Gunvalson, Tamra Judge was let go from The Real Housewives of Orange County, supposedly due to her age also, for being over fifty years old. Judge complained to Cohen that her firing had a devastating effect on her after being a part of the Bravo television series for 12 years.
Judge claimed that the firing turned her into an unwanted “red-haired stepchild.” She could not eat or sleep, and it made her cry for three days.
Carole Radziwill Called Cohen “Full of Shit”
Carole Radziwill starred in The Real Housewives of New York for 10 seasons. She got mad with Cohen when she was fighting with co-star Bethenny Frankel. Cohen took Frankel’s side in the dispute. During the show’s season 10 reunion, Radziwill said Cohen was “full of shit.”
On an episode of Play by Play, which subsequently aired on Bravo, Cohen said Radziwill thrived on stirring up tension in a “Trumpian” way. Radziwill fired back on Twitter that Cohen created a false equivalent and that she stood by her insult of him.
Debra Winger Gave Cohen the “Silent Treatment”
Debra Winger appeared on an episode of Watch What Happens Live. The interview was a disaster. Cohen tried to play his game called Plead the Fifth with her by asking revealing questions that she could choose not to answer.
Winger reacted with a retort when Cohen asked her about Shirley MacLaine. Winger also refused to answer Cohen’s request to rank her on-screen kisses. The show was very uncomfortable for all, including the viewers who watched the boring petulant non-communication.
Cohen seems to thrive on these gossipy bitch fights. He revels in his callous behavior with celebrity women. According to Cohen, The Real Housewives franchise thrives on women being “catty” and “dramatic.”
Getting all that negative attention for being a woman-hating jerk did not negatively affect Andy Cohen’s net worth. Maybe it is a good thing for his career to have high-profile celebrity females who hate him.
Cohen says that he loves women and that the Housewives franchise is a show about women for women. Kandi Burruss, who also stars in The Real Housewives of Atlanta, told TMZ that Cohen is very supportive of women, and he is a good guy. It appears that this controversy will not dissipate anytime soon.
Conclusion
Andy Cohen’s biggest success at Bravo was to make a show about scandalous women doing scandalous things. He made it into a franchise by giving it a geographical hook and generating many spin-offs. Are the real housewives of New York really that different from the ones in Atlanta or Orange County? They are all superbiatches if you ask me.
After Cohen got the show about women attacking each other popular, he made explosive scandalous gossip about the stars of the show, including revealing their secret past lives, vicious divorces, the many times they spent in rehab, and how some went to prison. After encouraging all of that, Cohen created a talk show that talks about the scandals.
Throw all of this into one big mix with enough innuendo and controversy to keep the tabloids engaged. This is the regular fare on Watch What Happens Live. If there isn’t a controversy, Cohen starts one. It includes allegations of sexual assault, claims of abuse, mixing misogyny and ageism, and all the nasty rumors about Kathy Griffin’s career being destroyed, with a little help by Cohen, which might turn out to be true.
At the end of the day, the Bravo network is like the movie Mean Girls on steroids. All the backstabbing gossip one can muster is used for throwing shade at all the others. That’s the point, and Andy Cohen is laughing all the way to the bank, even if he made you cry.