The Andy Cohen Diaries

by Andy Cohen

  I took Wacha on his first cab ride, which he loved, to the doggy hospital, which he tolerated. The waiting room is a trip—all dog and cat people (obviously) but they are in various stages of freak-out about their animals, to which they are extremely attached. Some disaster was sitting next to me carrying on so, so loud about her little dog’s heart condition or something. She said, to no one, she has to come in three times a week. She was a river of words but nobody was listening! The doctor said Wacha does have hip dysplasia and needs hip replacement surgery. They are so nonchalant about it (99 percent success rate) that I am choosing to be too, but my heart is breaking for the pup because he doesn’t know what’s coming to him. And the doctor was coy about whether he’ll have to wear a cone, which I know means he will. A dog in a cone, nothing sadder. Sigh. He has another appointment with the surgeon next week. I had a mini Shirley MacLaine moment waiting for his drugs at the checkout counter—probably not my last.

  Bruce came by in the afternoon. He saw the Madonna book that Grac had given me and said that he bought it for me, so now there’s officially a surplus and we’re all frozen. Do we keep what we have or go through with the exchange? (By the way, the book isn’t even so amazing, just photographs of her from her early days.)

  Went to Laura Linney’s baby shower. I brought a huge Snoopy, which always kills at a shower. She is beaming with her big miracle baby inside! I am so happy for her.

  Whoopi Goldberg was on my show and not only brought me a vape pen as a gift(!), she taught me how to do something (on air) that I still haven’t gotten the hang of: roll a joint (with oregano). Then I got a massage for two hours, and I always fall asleep when he does my legs, and then wake up when he says we’re done. So I ask, “Did you do my legs?” He says yes and then, I don’t know … it’s a whole trust fall. I guess I believe him. Did he do my legs? Does it matter?

  FRIDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2013

  I got paparazzi’d walking Wacha wearing mismatched everything and no underwear under sweats and unfortunately I looked down after the guy left and my dick looked like a thimble. Basically, like an outie belly button. So I’m convinced I’m going to be on a “talk-show hosts with small dicks” website. I would prefer a week of nose-picking photos. For the record I’m quite pleased with my dick.

  GMA ripped off the vault again. They didn’t even get their own graphics. It’s our vault and it says GMA on it!

  I brought Wacha to the gym. He loved it. He watched me box but got very upset when some lady was doing crunches. Unclear what the issue was there.

  I was interviewed for this year-end NBC special all about everything that happened in 2013. They wanted funny opinions about everything “big” that happened. Unfortunately, I didn’t care about anything that they considered “big.” I don’t care about Miley twerking. I don’t care about North West. Or selfies. I was not as enthusiastic as they needed me to be. Like, “I love that Kim Kardashian!” I started wondering what I do care about from the year. Basically Wacha and what’s going on in my neighborhood. I guess I’m all about me and the little box around me, just like our apathetic country. Then again, caring about twerking would not make me a better person.

  I continued cleaning out my office at 30 Rock and put together boxes of stuff Daryn’s gonna throw in a conference room and see if anybody wants. It was bittersweet going through everything, but mainly a pain in the ass figuring out what to do with all the shit I’ve accumulated.

  Through pouring rain and Christmas hell, I met Amy Sedaris in front of Sarah Jessica’s play. Amy is carrying around this little phone that looks like an old Nokia phone, but it’s wood, and she’s screaming into it. She’s doing the annoying-lady-on-her-cell-phone routine and people don’t realize it’s a piece of wood. And when they announced before the play for people to turn off their cell phones, she was making a big production, saying, “I’m going to leave it on vibrate. My husband’s supposed to text me.” The play was great and Sarah Jessica blew me away. So good to see her onstage again and she gave a performance with velocity. She has a full-on breakdown ninety minutes into the play. It was like a happy slap in the face, seeing her do that. As instructed, we hadn’t told her we were coming, and after the show we had dinner at Orso with her and Ron and Iva Rifkin. While the waiter was taking our order, Amy was screaming into “her phone” talking to “her husband.” For some reason I have a vodka trigger at Orso, and I can’t think of anywhere else it exists. But I digress. Amy wound up coming over after dinner until 2 a.m. We talked about Wacha and smoked her electronic hash cigarette. Then she left and I lay nose-to-nose with Wacha, desperately trying to communicate with him with my eyes. At one point he put his paw on my face very gently. (I was trying to tell him I am crazy about him and I’m not going to give him up.) It was a more intimate moment than I have had with a human in some time.

  SATURDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2013

  Who cares that—besides the Madonna books—I haven’t bought one Christmas present? Who cares that my Christmas party is in one week and I leave for Brazil in ten days? I pretended it was January and watched Gosford Park under a blanket with Wacha and we took a two-hour nap. Took Josh and his daughter Molly to the Lambs Club, where I have never dined and nonetheless was flooded by “Good to see you again” and “Welcome back,” which in turn led me to pretend that I owned the place. The meal was very fair. I was pulling out all the stops for my cousin and his daughter, so we went to SNL, which was a blockbuster show. Paul Rudd hosted, with musical guests One Direction and cameos by Kristen Wiig and the Anchorman dudes, plus my current favorite character, Jacob the Bar Mitzvah Boy.

  SUNDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2013

  Another lazy day when I should’ve been doing everything but did nothing. I watched the entirety of The Parent Trap. And started crying the second Natasha entered. Took Josh and Molly to see P!nk at the Barclays Center. I’m interviewing her Tuesday at the Billboard Awards and they wanted me to see the show. They set it up so Ray the Driver could go in the back entrance and down a huge elevator big enough for tour buses and trucks—it felt like we were in the trash compactor scene in Star Wars.

  The woman couldn’t have been better onstage (the “So What” finale knocked me out) and nicer off. And she’s a huge Top Chef fan. I took pictures with some of her backup dancers’ abs. Went deep with her tour manager about the B-52s. He worked on the “Cosmic Thing!” tour and I drilled him with questions. That was their huge breakout success and it happened right after Ricky Wilson died of AIDS. He said Cindy was heartbroken the entire tour because her brother had not lived to see them become massive. So sad.

  Kandi and Fantasia were on the show and the entire audience seemed to be made up of white auction winners from St. Louis. It was the wrong audience for a killer show. I bet we raised a lot of money, though.

  MONDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2013

  I woke up and took Wacha downstairs for his walk and was greeted by a heavy vibe coming off Surfin and the super, who were giving me the stinkeye. I asked what was up and they solemnly reported that the man who lived above me had passed away in the night. I swear Surfin and the super were looking at me like I had gone up there and killed him myself. I said I was very sorry and that I felt terrible. I reiterated to them both that I did not wish for this gentleman to die, and that it was a tragedy.

  I then walked the dog and, because we live in a dog-eat-dog world, on the way in asked the super when the appropriate time to contact the building would be, as they, not the family, own the apartment. He said to wait a few days. I gave it a few hours, then emailed the building and said, “The timing is awful but I know how NY real estate works, and I would be remiss if I didn’t say I hope you consider me first when you resell this apartment.” Then I took Wacha to the gym and he was so good, but while I was working out I had a flash-forward to the year 2043 when there’s a gay guy with a dog living next door to me willing me to death. So, this will haunt me.

  Some vaporizer company saw me rolling joints with Whoopi Goldberg and now the folks at VapeX
hale want to send me a complimentary Cloud EVO, whatever the hell that is. (What it is is a perk I never expected.)

  Before my show I saw Times Square Angel with SJ, Matthew, Hickey, Scott Wittman, Victor, Rainer, and the whole gang. A yearly ritual that never disappoints! Joan Rivers was the stand-in narrator for Julie Halston and there’s something so beautiful and heartbreaking at the end when Charles Busch (in drag) sings “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” to the audience. Maybe I’m overly emo about Wacha, but I shed a tear.

  At my show Magic Johnson’s son came with Kyle Richards and he’s, like, a six-foot-eight flamboyant gay dude in high heels, which is incredible. Abigail Breslin was on and though she is so lovely, I now think that seventeen-year-olds should not be allowed on the show. I was censoring myself.

  I got booked on Letterman for Wednesday and I have nothing to talk about and I’m completely freaked out.

  TUESDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2013

  It was snowing, to which Wacha seemed indifferent. I interviewed P!nk at this Billboard Awards luncheon. Tamron Hall was onstage before me, interviewing Janelle Monáe, and she said that she had emailed Prince to find out what he thought of Janelle and then she pulled out her phone and read the email to Janelle. So when I was onstage with P!nk I said I texted Madonna to see what she thought of P!nk and I just got a text back. Then I picked up my phone and fake-read, “Never fucking text me again.” It was pretty funny. (I actually do have Madonna’s cell phone number but she is too much of an idol to me to fuck it up by over-texting her.) We played “Plead the Fifth” and for someone with an exclamation point in their name, it turns out P!nk is indeed really cool. And even cooler, Debbie Harry was at my table. I wasn’t prepared to see Debbie Harry at a lunch, though. I don’t even think about Debbie Harry existing during the day, much less sitting down to lunch. Debbie eating lunch? One of these things is not like the other.…

  I’m really anxious about Letterman. I feel like I’m talk-showed out. I am searching my brain for a witty anecdote and there’s nothing there.

  I had dinner with Bruce, Grac, and Amanda at Añejo. Angelo Sosa sent over a ton of stuff and on the way to the show I was stuffed and tired. I’d had tequila at dinner, and even though I was so excited about the Downton Abbey cast (Mrs. Patmore, Branson, Thomas, and Lady Edith), I was spent and wanted to go home. I got there and I was sitting in my dressing room reading the research at 10:53 and all of a sudden I thought, “I’m gonna puke,” and I ran into bathroom and puked. It was a fluke puke. Out of nowhere! I walked back into the control room at 10:56 and said, “I need makeup. I just threw up my guts.” No one believed me. They thought I was kidding or lying or I don’t know what. They didn’t really react, like I was the boy who cried wolf. Meanwhile my eyes were watering and I was pukey.

  We got all these tweets during the show saying my eyes looked glassy, and asking if I was I stoned. I wanted to say, “I just puked, people!” And the disgusting thing was that indeed I was sipping a Fresquila during the show. I didn’t want to freak people out by not imbibing. (I am making up for my imminent long month of sobriety now.)

  The show, barfing aside, was great. My favorite thing of the night was the actress who plays Mrs. Patmore being impressed by my promo for Susan Sarandon and Ralph Fiennes (they’re on tomorrow) and then watching her find out that Meryl Streep had done the show. She turned to one of her co-stars and said,”He’s really going low with us lowly cast members. Those high-and-mightys who wouldn’t do it probably regret it now. Bloody Susan Sarandon.” I guess Lady Mary and Lord Grantham weren’t into doing the show.

  It was a classic win for the help.

  WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2013

  Went to the doggy hospital for Wacha’s pre-surgery follow-up. Saw the same loud annoying woman in the waiting room who made such a spectacle of herself last time. She was back because her dachshund gets a weekly EKG, and she literally was acting like she’s the one getting the EKG. Two weeks straight I moved seats.

  Then a nurse brought a blind man over and seated him next to me. The nurse said to him, “I’m so sorry.” After she left, he made a phone call, voice-activated, to someone to explain that his guide dog had just died and he needed a ride. I was just sitting there, frozen. It was a situation that I had never considered, and so overwhelmingly sad that tears were streaming down my face. I told him how sorry I was. He said this was his guide dog of twelve years and that he got a tumor out of nowhere. They’d just put him down. He said it could be June before he gets another dog. The place he called for a ride phoned him back and said they couldn’t get to him until 1 p.m. (this was 10 a.m.), and he kindly asked if they could please try to get him sooner, that he had just lost his dog. The whole situation was heartbreaking, and through it all this man was so calm. He was Indian, in his forties. What a gentle man. They called back and said they could be there in a half hour. He asked me to help get him to the elevator and I did and said goodbye.

  I met with the surgeon and they had sedated Wacha a little bit and he was so cute when he was high that I considered asking for sedation juice for home use. We scheduled his surgery and I led Wacha outside, where I ran into the blind man waiting for his ride. He was standing in front of the hospital and his bus was there idling but the driver wasn’t inside. It was confusing. I told him the bus was there and waited with him. It was a weird few minutes of limbo. His driver returned and off he went. I hope someone nice was waiting for him at home.

  In the cab downtown I had my Letterman pre-interview and I felt better about the segment. I tucked Wacha in and went to the cleaners, where the people who killed that old couple now have a tip jar. Why is there a tip jar at a cleaners?

  I went to work and had my last EP and development meeting, which should have been weird but was uneventful. I spent half an hour looking for my car to Letterman at Rock Center amidst the tree gridlock, couldn’t find it, asked Daryn to yell at the car company, and ultimately walked in the tundra, which took only seven minutes, so that was all a huge waste of time. The Letterman producer told me that Dave had said, “Why has it been so long since he was here? We loved him.” I tried to point out that I had been attempting to get back on the show for the last two and a half years but they had been saying no, but since Dave “loved me” I guess we’re pretending that didn’t happen.

  Before I went on I ran into Josh Groban in the hallway and thought he was a PA I worked with once. I totally didn’t place him. I have to address this problem I have of not placing people’s faces. He’s been on my show.

  My segment was completely surreal. Even though I’d been on once before, I felt out-of-body sitting with him. I’d been briefed a few times about everything Dave was going to say and then he went out of order and off script, which I liked. We talked about me taking pitches, yawning at Charlize Theron, and then we started talking about my show and he opened up about his alcoholism and what a bad drunk he was and I made the parallel between him and Carson in that regard. Then I made a comment that I was going to give him a chip when I left, referencing his years of sobriety. It wasn’t a joke, just a comment. A comment that landed with a thud. His response was, “Are we done? Is the interview over?” Very awkward. Then he asked Paul if he had anything else to say. He kind of threw it to Paul, vamped, and I was out. After the segment I tried to save face, thanking him and asking him what he thought of the Carson book, and he said it was horrible that that guy wrote it.

  From the moment I got out of the chair, the segment producer started talking me off the ledge about the thud that ended the segment. I’d been kind of freaked out, but this guy’s urgency made me totally paranoid. He kept repeating, “I know you think that was weird but it wasn’t. I think Dave loved it.” And all I heard was the word “think.” On the walk back to 30 Rock, I called a friend of mine in AA to see if I had said something wrong. He said it was fine to mention the chip but that he didn’t think Letterman was in AA. What the hell did I say that for?

  Next it was straight to the NBC Christmas part
y, where I was starstruck by Chuck Scarborough and had a nice chat with Matt Lauer. I think I made a comment about his goatee, but he pointed out that he actually has a full beard. So I think he thought I was making fun of his gray facial hair or the growth pattern or something. I wasn’t. All the NBC News stars were there, but I gravitated to the local news stars, as I always do, and it turns out Shiba Russell is a huge Housewives fan. I kissed Savannah Guthrie and ran out to meet Bruce at the Waverly. The flirty “straight” waiter wasn’t there again. I wonder if he flirted too much and got canned.

  On my show Susan Sarandon compared me on air to Jerry Lewis at a telethon, which I have to assume was a read. She and Ralph were hilarious and perfect together. It was a lightning-in-a-bottle kind of night. Ralph said he was flying off his martinis.

  Wacha was really hyper when I got home and I’m terrified that I’m gonna give him new hips and he’s going to turn into a wild dog. What if I prefer him as a cripple?

  THURSDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2013

  I watched the Letterman interview and it looked to me that he was dissing me at the end. And I looked fat and fifty. Random people on Instagram (the People’s Court) thought he was mean to me and I think I am assuredly, permanently off his list.

  I was also upset all day because I’m giving Wacha to the dog walker for the weekend because of my Christmas party, and I was carrying on to Bruce about it and he reminded me that he is, after all, a dog. That reframed it for me.

  I co-hosted the NY Women in TV and Film lunch with Wendy Williams. I loved that Frances was one of the honorees (easy for me to honor my boss). The others were Barkin (another easy one), Connie Britton, Robin Wright, and Sonia Manzano from Sesame Street. I loved gossiping with Wendy and the lunch was concurrently incredibly unorganized, long, and fun.

  I was on the red carpet doing interviews with Wendy and behind me these two women were getting their picture taken. One of them, I thought, was either Sharon Gless or Candice Bergen. If it was Candice Bergen, I didn’t think she would be happy that I was thinking that she was Sharon Gless. It turned out to be none other than Cagney and Lacey. That story was not good for anybody.