The Andy Cohen Diaries

by Andy Cohen

  THURSDAY, AUGUST 28, 2014—SAG HARBOR

  I am often the guy trying to keep the party alive when everyone’s leaving, and that’s kind of how I felt today as the carefree excesses of the Pines were strangled by reality. Next week is a bear, so Daryn had a lot of scheduling questions plus I had several phone interviews, a conference call about casting the next season of RHONY, and on and on. Boring. We’re not back on for another nine days, but sitting on the phone all morning, I felt like my vacation was over. Then Liza emailed me that TMZ was saying Joan Rivers had stopped breathing. Stopped breathing? I was stunned. And upset. And this has nothing to do with the show we’re pitching, it boils down to something simple that Liza said: I don’t want to live in a world without Joan Rivers. I was on edge all day, and reached out to my rabbi, Bill Persky, for a little therapy over a hamburger at LT Burger. He was full of classic Bill wit and advice, and I was so glad he ordered onion rings, because there’s no greater delicacy. The service at LT was all out of whack, though. I was texting with Anderson and he said that people at CNN heard that Joan was in bad shape, and with Liza and with Michael, with whom I am scheduled to continue pitching our show in the next few weeks. I took Wacha out for a long walk on the bay. He is back to normal now, all obsessive-compulsiveness gone. Then I got to find out what it’s like to be a doctor’s wife. I had a date with Dr. Kyle but he texted at seven-thirty that after a thirteen-hour day, the ER was full and he would be late. I realized at nine that I probably shouldn’t count on going out to dinner and I was fucked, with no food in my house other than a Sam’s pizza in the freezer. So Sam’s it was, second night in a row, and I felt a little pathetic. I texted Anderson a picture of Wacha chewing on his bone with his back to the TV, AC360 on the screen, then tweeted it but didn’t realize that the bone was placed where my dick would be, so then everybody started saying how filthy I am. Then Anderson joined in and tweeted, “Is that a bone?” and I started watching Project Runway, which I haven’t seen since I was one of its EPs at Bravo about five years ago, and was horrified to see the makeup is sponsored by Mary Kay Cosmetics and the accessories are Aldo. Low rent! So I sent a tweet about Mary Kay … and then immediately deleted it. This is what would happen to me if I was always staying home at night left to my own devices! The doc showed up at ten-thirty and I was very supportive. I wonder what would be worse, being married to a doctor or to a late-night talk-show host?

  FRIDAY, AUGUST 29, 2014—SAG HARBOR

  Still no news about Joan Rivers. Liza sent a clip of a 2006 pilot—one of my big on-air breaks—called Straight Talk, starring Joan and four gay guys, one of them me. She was so kind to me then and never stopped. (And she begged me to get Botox—I didn’t.) It was such a big deal for me to be sitting next to her on that show, just as it is now when she’s on mine. Feeling sad. Did more scheduling stuff for September. It’s going to be a bear, is all. I just have to get over the stress and enjoy the next few days because this bliss is about to evaporate.

  Went by Sandy’s; Barry and DVF are staying there. They analyzed Wacha’s shadow chasing, which was in full effect. DVF follows him on Instagram, which amuses me. Sandy is having two hundred people Sunday night, which he said really means two hundred and fifty with houseguests (OK, maybe three hundred), so there were lawn mowers, delivery men, a masseuse, pool guy, caterers, a chef, and Sandy’s houseguests all milling around. Controlled chaos. Stopped by the Fallons’, where a birthday party for Cameron Diaz was in effect—Nancy really knows how to put on a birthday party—and I took a Jacuzzi in their deep, 1970s-style wooden tub that smells very “Rocky Mountain High.” Also Jimmy set up a full karaoke thing with these microphones that have sound effects on them and some guitar lyric program on his iPad. I, of course, got deep into Fresquilas and Doritos. Rashida Jones said that Wacha looks really big and I said he photographs smaller than he is and she said, “You dick, I’ve met him. I’m not a fan.” So I have officially gone nuts. Came home, fed Wacha, and went to Jeanne and Fred’s for dinner. Fred just got an enormous job with the New York City Department of Education and we all toasted to him. Then to the 1.2 million kids starting school in the city public schools next week. Then to Joan Rivers. Then to great old friends. Actually, I think we toasted to great old friends first. Bruce texted me potential car names for the Dodge Charger: Vito, Monty, Rocky, Sly, Carlo, or Tony. I would like Carlo the best if there wasn’t a Monte Carlo already in existence. We are discussing tomorrow because I have thoughts on the others too. You can’t keep a car for too long without naming it. Come to think of it, mine doesn’t have one, so what do I know?

  SATURDAY, AUGUST 30, 2014—SAG HARBOR

  Perfect Hamptons beach day. Walked Wacha on Long Beach for an hour and chatted with Em and Bruce, who feels like the car name has gotta be Monty. I was mostly leaning towards Carlo, so I think we’re on the same page. (Although thinking more about Carlo, I’m just getting the pun of a car named Carlo. Cute!) I will support Monty, though. It was a drama-packed day at Beach Lane Beach Club, i.e., Marci’s house. After a gorgeous lunch (cold salads and smoked gravlax), we had a big beach hang and her friend Joe somehow dislocated his shoulder and it needed to be snapped back into place. Snapping a shoulder back into place is not in any of our skill sets, so Marci (flowing blonde hair over flowing Dior-gray beach dress that come to think of it was maybe actually a gown) and I ran around the beach asking every clump of people if anyone was a doctor. Marci (she cast SNL for years and years, so she’s great at casting) found the most typecast-looking Hamptons doctor (tall, gray hair, some kind of golf hat—Alan Alda-y), who told him to get to the emergency room. So off a group of them went and I realized that I happen to know someone at the ER at this very moment who might be able to help. I told them to look for a soap-opera-looking doctor with an intensely full head of hair and then texted Dr. Kyle, who I have come to realize looks just like that guy who played Grant Putnam on GH in the day. They hooked up and the shoulder got snapped into place. In the meantime there were doobies on the beach, and I had long chats with Andrew Glassman, who I tried to get on Tinder, and ScottStuff, who just returned from surfing in Malibu and told me all about the beach scene there vs. what we were looking at today. The difference seemed to come down to more fake tits in Malibu, but maybe I’m oversimplifying. Hickey had a dinner party at his incredibly groovy rental in the Springs overlooking the Sound. My highlight of the night was hanging with Ron and Iva Rifkin—together forty-five years this week—who were endlessly entertaining. I coaxed Iva not only to tell me all about her early days as a chorus girl with Valerie Harper, but to take her (always in a bun) hair down. Fun! I drove home in the hot night with the top down listening to the Grateful Dead under the stars, which is what summer is all about.

  SUNDAY, AUGUST 31, 2014—SAG HARBOR

  You think the last weekend of the summer is going to be a sun-kissed dream, but the reality is you wake up and it’s overcast and Joan Rivers is on life support and you have a September of obligations looming and you have to reevaluate everything. Blundered around all morning. FaceTimed with Bruce, who was in the middle of his own morning of blahs in Los Angeles. Invited myself for lunch at Mark and Kelly’s and I arrived just as David Muir left, which was upsetting because I would’ve liked to have seen the hair up close. (It’s a newsy masterpiece!) Then back at my house Adam appeared and my mood turned around on the table. I started feeling really grateful for everything—a two-hour massage will do that. For Sandy’s party, I took the opportunity of the last night of summer to throw on a white sport coat while my designated driver, Mark Consuelos, waited by the road. On the way, Mark and I decided to do some variation of Sober September—it may be weekdays. We have to figure out the logistics tomorrow. It was raining in Sag Harbor but East Hampton was clear and the thousands of votives in the yard lit up everybody known to have ever set foot in the Hamptons: Martha Stewart, Lorne Michaels, Jon Bon Jovi (amazing hair), DVF nursing a bee sting, Donna Karan just back from Bali, Roger Waters (of whom I am in awe), Michael
Eisner and family—the son is making a Grateful Dead documentary and I wanted to take out my credit card and invest—Les Moonves and the very sweet Chenbot, and on and on. It was fun, but Hickey and I were fantasizing about what could be happening at Sip n Twirl. In that spirit, I connected with a guy who appeared out of nowhere and after twenty minutes I decided was the one until he asked, “What do you think of Brits?” clueing me in that he was actually interested in the third member of our conversation, who’d gone off to get a drink. I told him that normally I love a Brit, but that for some reason this Brit was not passing muster for me. I fled the conversation soon thereafter. Janie Buffett and I had a great hang in one of the outdoor couch areas after dinner and were joined by Anjelica Huston, who told me she recently was sucked in by The Real Housewives of Melbourne and, on a separate but similar note, is very sympathetic to Teresa’s plight.

  Towards the end of the night, SJP, Matthew, and I were talking about Joan Rivers. We’d all seen her at various points this summer, and she was now all the proof needed that life, as the saying goes, can change in the blink of an eye. With that, SJ offered a toast to the end of summer of 2014, and as we raised our glasses and drank, she saw that I was sad. She began to offer a toast to the future, but Matthew jumped on my lamenting bandwagon, listing our current ills: “Isis, Putin, China taking over the world…” I began throwing some of my own in: “Israel, our vanishing Manhattan…” but she would not hear it and cut us both off. “Both of you—raise your glasses. Here’s to the fall—which holds great promise for each of us here. There is good to come for us all.… It will be great.” We drank to that, and in that moment, we all believed it.

  MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 2014—SAG HARBOR

  Labor Day. Unofficially the last day of it all. It’s been almost a year since I began this diary and in some respects I’m back where I started. Fashion Week is upon us, next week I’m heading to the DVF show and the U.S. Open (Mom and Dad are going on a tour of Nazi hot spots and can’t make it), and I feel kinda fat (but that’s for the Ninj and me to deal with this week). I’m still single but there are prospects, and this morning I called Surfin to make sure my apartment hadn’t burned down in the last few weeks. Before we hung up, I asked him about that guy Brandon from the tenth floor who was on the flight with Madonna. “He moved out last month, Andy, back to LA,” Surfin informed me. “You were too slow!” Why is Surfin always right?

  Slow start to the day. Jeanne and Fred stopped by and Jeanne gave me some great notes about the architectural plans to my new Barbie Manhattan Dream Pad. (Hmmm, why do I go right to Barbie? Wouldn’t it be a Ken Dream Pad?) With luck, a year from now I’ll be almost ready to move in. Met Hickey at SJP and Matthew’s beach. We had some amazing ocean time while Wacha chased reflections; I swear that dog might be on the spectrum. Hickey told me my phrase of the summer has been “A hundred percent”—that’s been my response to him all summer. Who knew? As magic hour approached, Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman arrived with the ashes of their beloved dog Wally Woo, who passed almost a year ago after fifteen years, much of that spent swimming at this very beach. Rainer had painted a beautiful picture of Wally, which he brought along, and Victor, Bridget Everett, Matthew, and I all watched from the edge of the water while Marc and Scott scattered Wally’s ashes in the surf. For all the iconic music those two have created for the stage and screen, I think Wally might have been their greatest source of joy. Marc was in tears putting the dog back where he loved the most, and then we all were too. Standing there watching Marc end his time with Wally Woo, with Wacha at my feet, filled me with love for what is, I hope, the beginning of fifteen years of our togetherness. As for Wacha, I wanted him to experience some of the poignant moment but he was so self-involved I could’ve killed him.

  I came home to a message from Nancy and Jimmy to meet them at the American Hotel for some end-of-summer caviar. You don’t have to ask me twice. Many toasts to the end of the beach season, and we moved on to Sen and some sake. Rashida Jones joined in progress. We all walked to BuddhaBerry, the FroYo craze of the summer of 2014, where they had locked the doors a couple minutes before and the Nordic lady in charge would make no exceptions. We felt defeated—how can we end the summer without FroYo?!? As we stood dwelling in our misfortune, a Real Housewife of I don’t know where (hell?) approached. She was tall, mid-fifties, fake blonde and fake boobs in a black tank top that said “Never Never Never”—we told her it was closed and she got into a long thing with Jimmy, who is the mayor of everywhere and has the unique ability to talk to anybody anywhere about anything without hitting a wall. (I do not have this gift.) She left and we stayed hanging out like teenagers with nowhere to go, pondering the “Never Never Never” shirt. What did that mean? I will never sleep with you? I will never marry you? (We think she would’ve gone all the way.…) Twenty minutes later the “Never Never Never” lady returned with a big bag of FroYo (from the inferior place down the street) in her bountiful bosom! We were thrilled—what a gift! It hit the spot, and we stayed laughing and loitering on the empty street for about an hour. Came home and watched old Dick Cavett interviews on YouTube while Wacha endlessly licked my face. Back to the city—and real life—tomorrow.

  Dad and I at the US Open—nice photobomb, Martha!

  Jim Edmonds, Tony LaRussa, and me at the playoffs—I’m wearing Tony’s rings

  Nobody seems to want this huge poster of SJP and me!

  Ryan, our renaissance PA, with the Pee-fume

  My huge office at Bravo, RIP

  World Series with my folks

  John Hill, Bruce, and me at the Walter Mitty premiere

  Unclear how I got roped into posing with these birds with Martha at the Today show

  My first Instagram of Wacha

  Blurry selfie with Gaga—as the undead—at the Glamour awards

  John Hill and Wacha the day we met him—so licky!

  Jumpsuit fitting with Cynthia Rowley!

  With Britney. Awkward.

  Taping Sesame Street

  With the Downton Abbey cast—do I look like I just puked?

  My beard and me with DVF at her “Journey of a Dress” LACMA opening

  Breakfast in Brazil with Anderson and Ben, obsessed with The Goldfinch

  Barbara Walters giving me “talk to the hand” as I apologized

  Is there anything sadder than this pic?

  Ralph Lauren Olympics sweater backstage at the Today show

  Bruce, Michael, Hamilton, Kelly, Benjamin, and me at the Vanity Fair party

  “Cast photo” at the 2014 Lincoln Center American Songbook Gala honoring Bryan Lourd—I’m serving Angelina Jolie leg realness

  BVI dive off the boat

  At sea with Bruce in the British Virgin Islands

  Montana bromance

  With the groom, Dave Serwatka, in Nola

  It started to snow while John was recording, and he took me out for a quick photo session.

  Wacha’s TV debut!

  Shaq picked me up? I don’t even remember.

  Gaga and Grac backstage at Roseland

  Wacha with St. Louis Cardinals Shelby Miller, Jon Jay, and Daniel Descalso

  I am obsessed with Gaga’s hot bodyguard—backstage at Roseland

  Mid–Billie Joel concert selfie with Bruce and SJP

  Jerry, me, and Mark at Jerry’s birthday

  In SJP’s bathroom before the Met Ball

  Cohosting Revlon Run/Walk with Emma Stone

  On the Met Ball red carpet

  Me, Abby, and Em at Rock Center

  Housewives crossover at dinner!

  Shooting The Comeback with Val and Mickey (Lisa Kudrow and Robert Michael Morris)!