by Andy Cohen
Sharon Osbourne and Tyler Perry were on my show and we may as well have had two heads of state with the amount of security they had. It was Orange Alert in the Clubhouse. Tyler had like twenty people in front of his green room and then I went in and it was just him alone, which was fascinating. He’s a really nice guy.
I got home and I had one of those endless massages and I lay there thinking and churning and at the end I felt like I’d solved all my problems. The first revelation was that I remembered reading recently that dogs essentially have the comprehension of a two-year-old human. As much as I want this dog to understand me, I have to think of him as a two-year-old. For some reason that struck me as a big relief. I also decided to buy a MacBook Air, which during the massage seemed revolutionary.
My screeners have started coming for Oscar movies but I’m only getting bad ones so far. Oh, and I almost forgot, Cynthia Rowley’s jean jumpsuit arrived and it’s kinda like a denim Mao suit, very cool!
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2013
I texted Madonna inviting her to my Christmas party and she texted back, “Yes. I need to have fun,” and now that Madonna is coming to my apartment I am a complete and total wreck. I worked out and was a total pain in the ass at the gym. If I were my trainer, I would have kicked me out. Wacha left for the weekend and he was quite fine about it. He didn’t look back.
I ran around doing errands for the party. After all these years of throwing what I boastfully view as one of the great annual apartment parties in NYC, I have the prep down to a science. I stayed home to chill out, and at 11:30 p.m. Harry Smith and Andrea Joyce showed up, thinking the party was tonight. I forced them to stay to have a drink, which turned into several, and we hung out till one-thirty. Andrea told me about this charity where you take your dog to visit terminally ill kids. I want to do it.
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2013
It was a huge snowstorm, and I did everything for my party yesterday, so I just mellowed out all day. Madonna texted me saying the music better not be as bad as it was at Anderson’s and my joint birthday party in June, which sent me into a tailspin. I asked her what she wanted to drink and she said either Krug Rosé Champagne (“Everything else is for losers”) or a cosmo.
The party was a smash. It’s essentially the same list every year, with old friends and new, and no work people allowed. (I think I’m actually self-conscious about getting wasted in front of them.) The quadruple killer was that Bruce was sick, Bryan in LA, Amanda out of town, and Jeanne doing something with her kid, but a great hodgepodge collage did show up in the snowstorm. Troy Roberts, Grac, John Hill, Liza, Jackie, Anderson and Ben, Hickey, Mark and Kelly, Sean Avery, Amy Sedaris, Shea, Jason and Lauren, Susan Sarandon, Barkin, Monica Lewinsky, Ralph, Scott Wittman, Ricky and Allison, and on and on. Jessica Seinfeld brought Cameron Diaz. Madonna came and stayed for at least ninety minutes. I ejected Billy Eichner from his prime seat (there aren’t that many seats btw, it’s more of a standing affair) on the red loungy thing in the corner, saying, “You don’t mind making room for Madonna, right?” Given that he had a Madonna-themed bar mitzvah, he absolutely did not mind making room for the Lady. I was predominantly too freaked out to talk to her most of the night, and just happy she was there. When I finally did go in for a quick chat, she asked me when my birthday was and said to get myself a better sound system as a gift to myself. Thoughtful! I handed her my phone and told her she could DJ on Spotify. She didn’t care to. She wanted the password for my Wi-Fi. Which is “Andrew Cohen,” in case I ever forget. She was mouthing the words to “Hung Up” when it came on. That moment alone was enough to last me till the next party. The last guests—Fred, Ralph, Bridget Everett, Hickey, Chris and Bill—left sometime after 4 a.m. I used to take pictures at my Christmas party and now I don’t. Nothing’s special anymore?
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2013
Recovery day. I ordered a cheeseburger deluxe from Village Den, which was like candy. I realized I should’ve offered Madonna one of those books last night since I have a surplus. Or maybe not.
I took Liza to the Anchorman 2 premiere at the Beacon Theatre. Sat in front of Hoda Kotb and Willie Geist. John McEnroe brought Patty Smyth over—she wanted to say hi apparently and to get a picture to Instagram, and she made McEnroe take about ten, none of which satisfied her, so Hoda wound up taking the shot. I reminded McEnroe that I’d met him at Janie Buffett’s in the spring and had a funny conversation in which he revealed that he was wearing Björn Borg underwear (as was Will Arnett), and he said he had it on again and that it’s great underwear. The idea of McEnroe wearing Björn Borg underwear blows my mind. The movie was funny. I’m having Will Ferrell and Steve Carell on Tuesday night. I’m nervous and trying to pinpoint exactly why. It may be because they’re huge, funny movie stars with whom I don’t have a natural connection, and I don’t know if I have the confidence to be funny around them. And Sue Simmons is bartending, which is making me even more freaked because she is a local TV legend, and we all know my feelings on that front.
Apparently I carried on too much about Kenya’s boobs tonight. My mom thinks I’m demeaning women with my boob obsession.
MONDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2013
Wacha is at a photo shoot with Heather Thomson. She needed a cute dog and asked for him, so he went from the dog walker in Brooklyn to the shoot and then he’s coming back to the West Village. He’s officially a city dog. Who came from a kill shelter in West Virginia.
I went to Bergdorf’s and got a ton of shopping done. I was at Bravo all day doing Christmas stuff and they came to me at five and said I was needed in the conference room and I realized as I was going over there that there was gonna be a champagne thing for me because it was my official last day at Bravo and I just felt like I didn’t want it. I was not feeling like being celebrated. It was weird. I’m like half in and half out, half leaving but half not. Then when Frances said it’s been an amazing nine and a half years I started to get emotional. And it was really fast and then it was over—the party and the nine and a half years.
My show was so irritating. Brandi made an inadvertently racist comment about blacks not being able to swim on RHOBH last week. I have been dealing with a lot of shit coming my way.
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2013
I worked out with Will and I hated everything I had to do. It was awful. I feel like my legs are perfect and I don’t want to do one more freaking squat. I must be a real joy to train. To think I have to actually amp this up after the New Year.
We taped the Will Ferrell, Steve Carell, and James Marsden show early because of their schedules. I narrowed down my nervousness to a severe inferiority complex, which is rare for me. Sue Simmons told me before the show that she’d seen an episode and noticed that the bartender doesn’t do much. I assured her it would be special, but ended up being codependent with her on the show because I didn’t want her to feel un-special. Dave came to sit in the audience and was not only moral support for me tonight, but when I told him about my no-booze January he joined the wagon with me. If we both pull this off, there may wind up being a whiskey surplus in the Northeast.
The moment we started taping, I felt, among other things, like I should not have worn a glen plaid wool suit, because I was sweating like a whore in church. I was self-conscious trying to be funny in front of these really funny huge movie stars. Like, the funniest movie stars in the country. Some of the funniest in the world. The sweating aggravated my nerves, which then made me sweat more. I wanted to reference the sweating, but then I thought that would sound self-conscious, which in my mind I already felt. And Sue Simmons is over their shoulder activating the whole codependency thing. By the way, her hair has gone natural and she is full Afro queen. The show turned around for me when we played a game with funny clips of local anchormen. (Also the prizes were robes and Sue said she had been in the market for a nice robe.) Will Ferrell was so nice during the breaks and took a real interest in the evolution of the show and all that we’re doing, which was very flattering, yet it didn
’t stop me from sweating. Caroline raced into the studio during commercial breaks and was telling me how bad my sweating was, which of course made me sweat more. Dave didn’t think I was as bad as I did.
After the show I went with Hickey and a group to the Barclays Center to see John Mayer and his band. I’ve known him a few years but never seen him perform onstage. The set details were amazing. I don’t know why I was so surprised but he is Mr. Showbiz onstage—major charisma—and he shreds the guitar to the point that the band becomes a jam band in the classic sense. I was loving it. And as if all that wasn’t enough, halfway through the show he spotted me in the audience and scrapped the song he was about to sing and said, “I have to sing this next song for my friend Andy,” and he sang “Whiskey, Whiskey, Whiskey,” which is my favorite. I was floating. After, we all stayed in Brooklyn for a dinner at Rucola. I talked to Karlie Kloss about St. Louis stuff (she’s from there too). I was starstruck by John after seeing what he could do onstage, which was a new feeling with him. I also chatted with Katy Perry for a long time. She’s lovely. We talked about Beyoncé. We talked about Mariah and I told her she’s coming on WWHL tomorrow. She was asking about that, and I alluded to the challenges associated with some bookings. (What I didn’t mention was the Do Not Mention list, which basically boils down to not discussing any other lady singer.) What I should’ve done was ask Katy about Gaga. At one point at the end of the night, she told me to stop screaming at her and I tried to explain that modulation issues run in my family but that fell on ears that I had probably already rendered deaf.
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2013
Today was a major TCB day so I could get all my shit done to leave for Brazil tomorrow night. Am I really ditching Christmas in NYC to go to Brazil? Tomorrow? Christmas to me is synonymous with New York and I always stay in the city for the holiday with friends and ditch town on the twenty-sixth with Bruce or some amalgamation of people. This doesn’t seem real. I basically ran around like an idiot getting a few final Christmas presents, and I brought Wacha with me, so we both looked spastic on the streets of the Village. I bought Dad a Double RL sweatery-coat thing that on second thought I don’t think he is gonna dig. I wish Ralph Lauren hadn’t converted the West Village stores into Double RL—it’s too costume-y for me, as I tell the poor people who work there every time I go in.
We were meant to tape our Winter Finale with Mariah at 6 p.m. and I had to get there at 4 for a shoot with DVF and Coco Rocha to promote this live-stream thing I am doing in January for her big dress exhibit. Shooting a promo for something in January before you leave for Christmas break just makes you wonder if the world will end before the show you’re shooting the promo for sees the light of day. Am I the only one who thinks that way?
Mariah’s people pushed the taping a half an hour three or four times. Her lighting guy was on time, I’ll tell you that. She finally was in the chair around 8 p.m. (The audience had to have been extra-hammered.) I went over the Do Not Mention list with her people before the show, to show them that she was safe and I wasn’t going to fuck anything up. What was not on that list was Glitter and Whitney Houston, two things that were on my list of things to talk about. I was worried about her reaction to Glitter, as it was not exactly a high point in her career.
She was lovely and seemed up for the show. We had a little toast in her dressing room; she’d brought her own goblet (See: Patti LaBelle, who also travels with a personal goblet) and she suggested two little bits to me (her makeup guy touching her up while she was mid-convo with me, and a bunch of guys helping her take her coat off at the top of the show), to which I said, “OMG, that sounds great!” without ever actually intending to do them. While she and I were talking, Access Hollywood was on in the back playing Christina and Gaga’s duet from The Voice and someone hurriedly turned the tube off. Hmmm.
On the show we talked a lot about Glitter and Whitney, and during the break she brought up Idol and said I could ask about it. And I did exactly the opposite of what I did with Gaga when she gave me permission to “name names” during her commercial break: I went there. Mariah is a rambler, the lady really talks and talks, and she kept telling me to interrupt, that it’s my show, but I felt bad doing so. She is clearly a handful but she knows her shit and I enjoyed her. I surrendered my seat to her—or I should say I surrendered my seat to her “better side”—and it was weird doing the show from the left. And I was schvitzing again, so Deirdre was saying “Lip!” into my ear every time I needed to wipe mine, which was a lot. Mariah seemed to have a blast. I gave her a Mazel robe and she stayed in her room for a couple hours afterwards doing who knows what. I want her to come back.
The live show, our last real show of the year, was with SJP, and as tired as I was, I was just pumped that it was her and that it would feel like a vacation sitting there on TV with her. And it did.
We had a good catch-up in her dressing room beforehand—she in her bra looking very hot. Hickey was a surprise guest for the shotski, and I made her do a cosmo shot but it was way too strong for her and she spit it out just as we were going to break. I did this thing at the end of the show where I acted like I was going to fuck her when we got off the air. I must’ve been drunk. Me, SJ, and Hickey hung out in the Clubhouse after the show for about an hour and had cocktails.
I was zonked out. We all were. Oh, and Anderson texted at some point in the night saying our flight to Rio was canceled. He rebooked us through São Paulo. Oh, Brazil!
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2013
In the midst of trying to get the hell out of town, Wacha bit me today when I was cleaning his paws off. Like, it broke through my skin. I was so pissed. I called the trainer, who said it may be that he has salt on his feet from the street and his paws are hurting. So we had a rough few hours, and when Sherman the dog walker came to take him to Brooklyn, he was incredibly excited, which made me simultaneously pissed and happy. I wouldn’t want him to go somewhere he wasn’t happy to go but what the hell does Sherman have that I don’t? And by the way, I have been calling Sherman “Stanford” for the last three months. And he hasn’t been correcting me! And he was even in my phone as Sherman. On the way to the airport, I realized that I forgot my asthma inhaler.
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 20–MONDAY, DECEMBER 23, 2013—NYC–RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL
Slept like a champion on the plane, with help from white wine and Ambien. I found my inhaler. I feel like an escapee from the thunder of friends and parties in Christmastown; suddenly I’m anonymous (with Anderson, Benjamin, and Pablo) in Rio. It feels great here, quiet—high clouds and hot. Not a crazy amount of people on the beach like you see in February. The people who go to the pool at the Fasano are the same type that go to the Delano in Miami—obnoxious liars and frauds and the people who love to hate them, but on an international level. I talked with a handsome guy from Prague who was with a much older girlfriend and was blathering on to me about his friends “Elton and David”—so I mean … Some other lonely dude is a “trader” insinuating himself on everyone, feverishly desperate to make a plan. I think he’s here alone. It’s a weird group of people. And yet the men are more beautiful in Rio than anywhere else. It’s like living in a candy store. They are all available too, even the straight ones.
How’s this for a joke in search of a punch line: Me, Anderson, and Sam Champion are in a bar in Rio. That actually happened. We ran into him one night.
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 24–SATURDAY, DECEMBER 28, 2013—TRANCOSO, BRAZIL
A super chilled-out clump of days. It started out a little dicey because I’d been in charge of Anderson’s and my bag and had only checked them through halfway (we changed planes), so I fucked up the baggage of Mr. International Traveler. I lost them. I don’t think AC’s bags get waylaid that often. Anyway, we got them the next day. I read—and loved—The Goldfinch, and either because the book was so vivid or I wasn’t used to getting so much quality sleep, I dreamed more than I can remember in a long time. Big, active, dramatic, vivid dreams … all of which I’ve now
forgotten but they were great in the moment. Even though we were in the land of Portuguese, I was strutting my high school Spanish and it seemed to translate: Gracias, Señora Walter. I remain fat, but the people here don’t seem to care. These Brazilian men are incredible. And available. And friendly. There is no greater pleasure for me than zoning out for hours walking on the beach listening to music. And of course I am happier with a tan, which I have now. The town, built around a square (the Quadrado), feels like Brigadoon, a perfect place with bright colors and twinkly lights and romantic Brazilian songs with strumming guitars. We had excellent meals even though the service in Brazil is so bad it’s funny. It’s like they’re trying to figure out ways to fuck up or slow down your order. And who cares, because they don’t and they’re so damn cute. The Winklevoss twins were staying at our hotel, and I’m pretty sure they were with their own security, which felt weird. We all figured out which Sex and the City character we’d be; I was Samantha and Anderson was Miranda. He wasn’t pleased. I was.
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 29, 2013—SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL
Not sure which of us decided it would be fun to have a party night in São Paulo before we left, but I was kind of wishing I was still on the beach in Trancoso. I am in the middle of The Book Thief, which my mom implored me to read. She writes her name in all her books, which I found cute when I saw the “Evelyn Cohen” in cursive on page 1. I watched three movies in my hotel room—it was too hot to go out—Dallas Buyers Club, Her, and Inside Llewyn Davis—I was snoozed out by all of them in different ways. Sometimes movies on DVDs don’t translate at all. We went out big and it was fun. I grew a beard on this trip.