by Andy Cohen
SUNDAY, AUGUST 9, 2015—SAG HARBOR—NYC
Sent Brandi a thoughtful email back, which I hope she appreciates. I refuted her point by point. I don’t hate her. Had lunch at the Seinfelds’, where Wacha ran around the massive yard chasing birds, which was adorable and glorious. He really wore himself out. He runs like a bunny with his gimpy hip. Bethenny called because she is hosting the RHOBH at her house and Lu keeps trying to get herself invited but production doesn’t want a double crossover, and Lu keeps texting to Bethenny, “Don’t be uncool.” I think it’s hilarious, of course. Hung with Hickey at SJP’s for a dip in the ocean. SJP had the most insane hairdo—a top knot/high pony combination of the Miss Hannigan variety. I loved it. She said she went to the supermarket in it. Then I surprised Vanderpump, Kyle, Rinna, and Eileen at a winery in Water Mill where they were at a tasting. Fun to see them in my backyard.
MONDAY, AUGUST 10, 2015
Worked out. It is so great having Bruce back for the summer. He came for lunch and we camped out on the terrace with Liza all afternoon while a parade of people came in and out of the door: Mike Robley to deal with the outdoor lights for my staff party; my computer geek, JP; then Tonee to cut my hair. It was a fun afternoon. I actually returned the razor blades at CVS I bought last Thursday and then got five dollars off with my coupon, so I got free milk. I felt like I accomplished something. We taped Ricki and Caroline Manzo, then the live show was Vicki and Jeff Lewis. We all went out to the Hotel Gansevoort roof after, joined by Tamra and later NeNe. Jeff and Tamra analyzed my inability to be in a relationship. Tamra thought I didn’t have any sex at all or else she would be reading about it, and I said that’s not the case, no one cares who I’m having sex with. NeNe arrived in a Veronica Lake long blond wig and gave me the play-by-play of why she can’t do the show with Kim, which seems to involve something that happened at the same women’s expo where she and Wendy Williams’s husband got into it. I left at one-thirty and they were shocked that I was leaving. Oh, and Vicki showed me her boobs several times and they are very nice, with small nipples. They look great. So now I have seen hers and Tamra’s. And I think Kim’s.
TUESDAY, AUGUST 11, 2015
Got an email from Vicki saying she can’t believe she showed me her boobs, that it was totally unprofessional. I said you are the OG Housewife and it’s kind of in your job description. Almost cancelled the Ninj, but it’ll be my last workout before my three-week vacation so I felt I had to go. Then went to lunch with Jenny McCarthy at Morandi. I sat outside for twenty minutes waiting for her, then realized I bet she was inside and went in and there she was. We gossiped a bunch. She said Joy Behar kept a daily journal of her entire time on The View—so that’s gotta be incredible, but I bet we won’t see it for a while. Most importantly, she taught me about uncut dicks—that they get harder more easily because they are hooded and so extra sensitive. Like, a wind on the tip can make them crazy hard. Jenny taught me about penis stuff? Walked home and called Anderson to gossip. It was rainy so I did work and tried to nap, then BJ Novak came over to talk about his list app and stuff. He is sweet and a little intense. Interviewed Connie Britton for radio, then she was on the show with Austin Mahone, during which I said I was a fluffer for guys, which made me look pervy—I meant girls. Then I interviewed Christina Hendricks for radio, then did the live show with her and Bethenny and then a ninety-minute interview with Bethenny. That’s a lot of interviewing, and I have an early morning tomorrow.
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 12, 2015
Woke up and started interviewing again. First up was Senator Claire McCaskill, for radio. Taped a show with Kim Zolciak and Angela Kinsey, then recorded the voice-over for the RHONY lost-footage show, during which I had to say “Jewish sushi chef” and it took about ten minutes between fits and giggles and exhaustion to get it out. Took Wacha to Canine Styles to get dry cleaned and he was furious. Guess what? They’re going out of business! Greedy landlord. Where am I gonna take this boy? Threw a party for the entire staff of WWHL on my terrace and it was a beautiful night. I had seventy Steakburgers and fries from Steak ’n Shake and all of them got eaten. Two people on the staff got really drunk, so I think it was a success.
THURSDAY, AUGUST 13, 2015—SUNDAY, AUGUST 23, 2015—FIRE ISLAND
I rented an incredibly chic house on Fire Island designed by Horace Gifford and it’s perfect. Supposedly there is a dungeon downstairs, but I haven’t seen it. Met a Jewish lawyer at tea and went to his house for dinner, which was one of those typical Fire Island dinners—random group, pre-meal Adderall passed around, and a kid who said it was his first time on Fire Island and he was having a miserable time. I said you should hate it, it’s awful, I understand, but in fifteen years you’ll like it. Then the lawyer and I took a Jacuzzi and the hosts offered me molly for the Meat Rack party but I went home and took an Ambien.
Saturday Bruce came out and we had twenty-four hours of bliss together. We decided maybe he will transition in twenty years to a Judge Judy type named Bruna Bozzi who will run for mayor of NYC, and she will keep saying, “ENOUGH ALREADY.” I met a Dominican at Sip n Twirl who asked me if I like rough sex. I was like, no! Sunday John Hill arrived and Bruce went to the Hamptons, where I joined him hours and a ferry ride later for Madonna’s “Spanish Gypsy”–themed fifty-seventh birthday party. In the galaxy of themed parties, Spanish Gypsy is not my favorite. I hated my costume, which was a puffy shirt and seventies striped pants. Mark and Kelly, both looking very sexy (despite the boot on Kelly’s foot), gave me a ride, and I said I came from Fire Island because I have FOMO and Kelly said she has FOGO—fear of going out. Ha. Kelly gave me a smoky eye, at which point I felt better about my outfit.
The party was in three locations on her massive horse farm in Bridgehampton. There were votives everywhere that took you through the barn (full of Madonna’s horses—Madonna needs a bunch of horses!) to a little paradise with Oriental rugs and hay and strings of lights everywhere. It looked like a movie set of a gypsy village. Madonna was Stevie Nicks gypsy, with a grill and a hint of Baby Jane. Another long path of votives led us up into the middle of a field, where two long picnic tables were set up under twinkly lights for a seated dinner. Sat across from Guy Oseary and next to Paul McCartney and his wife, Nancy. She was very cool—in the family trucking business. Sir Paul and I talked about how great Howard Stern is, even though he was scared at first of going on. They left kinda early. Got compliments from Guy about my Madonna interview in EW; he said I got her talking about stuff she doesn’t talk about. I wanted a selfie with Madonna badly but never asked for one. You become that guy. She said she is rehearsing for her new tour at the Nassau Coliseum from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 a.m. every day. After dinner, lights in the distance went on slowly and a tent appeared, and there was another path lit by candles and we all went there. I mean, it was far. And now we were in the middle of a massive field under a circus tent, and I chatted with Madonna about how sweet her kids are (Rocco hugged me when he introduced himself), how well everyone adhered to the dress code (“It’s nice when people make an effort”), and how far behind she is in preparing for the tour. I told her thanks for the interview and she said it was nice, she liked it. She was sitting on a throne, and she said I don’t know if this is for me but I tend to gravitate toward thrones. There were about forty-five minutes of performances by dancers—a Spanish flamenco dancer, etc.—then we all got sparklers and her cake came out. I bet she spent $1.5 million on this thing. Major dancing. Bruce was shirtless and dancing with Naomi Watts like they were on Dancing with the Stars. We left around 2:00 a.m.
Came back to Fire Island the next morning at 9:00 a.m. and Dave arrived. We had the best boy day, just drank and swam and talked and talked and talked. I loved showing him the gay beach camp; it was every Fire Island stereotype right in his face: We saw an underwear shoot on the beach, Robert and Robert across the way had a daytime sausagefest pool party going. A group of boys plopped down on the beach in front of us and I bet Dave they were chorus boys on their day off from t
heir show. We went in the water and sure enough, they were all telling me what shows they’re in. Made flank steak and took Dave to tea, where people thought we were boyfriends. Everyone was going to see Shequida but we went home and ate frozen pizzas and took a Jacuzzi. He left the next morning and word in town was that Shequida had a meltdown on stage last night and left mid-performance. There were technical difficulties—not her fault, but apparently she did an epic monologue about how the drag queen always gets blamed but it’s not the queen’s fault. Then she dropped the mic a few bars into “Private Dancer,” which is her tip song, and just disappeared. I was going to go see Lady Bunny, but she cancelled because she lost her voice on the Wigstock cruise. So it wasn’t a good week for drag queens on Fire Island. By the way, I posted a pic of the RHONY at the reunion today and every time I post a photo of the Housewives on Facebook, Facebook automatically tags Lady Bunny, so I guess they are drag queens according to Facebook. And I saw the Brazilian at tea who has the Grace Jones tattoo that looks like the state of California. He’s telling everyone I wrote a book about him because I mention his bad tattoo in the Diaries.
Grac and Amanda came out on Thursday morning. I made them lunch, which they couldn’t get over—grilled chicken, corn, and brussels sprouts (#BrazilianAndySamberg taught me how to grill them the other night on FaceTime). We talked about everything, and I was in the pool lamenting to Grac that I can’t believe we are forty-eight and she told me we’re forty-seven and I freaked out. I’ve spent the last two months thinking I’m forty-eight and now I feel like I was just given back another year to live! I’m young! Hickey arrived that afternoon and we went to tea, then to hear Lina spin, then home for dinner and we ate some of Amanda’s pot brownie and I was out of it and couldn’t wait to go to bed. Spent the next day sick in bed all day—horrible. The girls went back to the Hamptons and Hickey left early Saturday to go to NYC. So all the fun was aborted and I stayed in sick, waiting to go to Barry’s boat off the coast of Spain on Sunday. I finished The Girl on the Train in a day. I didn’t figure it out. Not the ending to the Fire Island experience I’d wanted. I am too tan, so there’s that.
SUNDAY, AUGUST 23, 2015—SATURDAY, AUGUST 29, 2015—NYC—SPAIN—NYC
I was sick-ish with a stomach bug most of the time we were on the boat. There were many swims in the very blue water off the coast of Ibiza, dodging jellyfish, but they were short for me. The group was Bruce, Bryan, Barry, DVF, Anderson, Ben, Jason, Lauren, Jeff Bezos and his wife, MacKenzie, and SJP—who I’d been wanting to be on the boat with for so long. It was such a letdown to be sick when it finally happened. Bezos has a booming laugh and what seemed like a Midwestern sensibility, even though he grew up in Miami. Bruce figured out The Girl on the Train less than halfway through, which was impressive. I’m reading A Little Life, which is heartbreaking and fantastic. Fell in love with Mike, the impossibly handsome, and impossibly straight, new ginger crew member. One night I dreamt SJP and I were backstage at Diana Ross’s Central Park concert—the sunny make-up date, not the rainy one—and it was so colorful and vivid that I woke up feeling it was real. I started thinking about Christmas and what I might do, and realized another year was upon us and here I was single and alone, and I started to become disconnected from the group. I feel like I actually lost some of my tan on this trip. Also I feel like I’m ready to go back to work, but I have another week off. The news from home is that Martino from Canine Styles has relocated to Beasty Feast on Hudson Street. Wacha can go to his same groomer he hates instead of having to find a new one to fall in hate with.
Landed in NYC and went straight to the walk-in clinic. The nurse had a mushroom-cap hairdo, which you don’t see too much anymore, and said her name was Aspen. I said that was such a pretty name, and that I love Aspen. She said she was born in one and that’s how she got her name. So at least she wasn’t born in a Civic or something. But Altima would be kind of a fabulous name. Aspen gave me a kit to poop into to make a stool sample because they figured I had a parasite, but all the labs are closed until Monday. I decided I might actually choose the parasite over having to poop in a kit and bring it to a lab. Walked Wacha and met a guy on Twelfth Street who approached me with tears in his eyes and said I was his only hope—he’d cheated on his girlfriend by texting another girl (nothing else happened), but he still loves her so much. He knows he fucked up the trust. I’m her favorite. I did a two-minute testimonial video for him. Went to Indochine with Bruce, Bryan, and Benjamin. Came home and was asleep by ten-thirty.
SUNDAY, AUGUST 30, 2015—MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 2015—SAG HARBOR
Final week of vacation out in Sag Harbor. Feel like I have something still. Lyme disease? I got tested for it on Monday. It takes four days to find out. I never pooped in the kit; I can’t do it. Finishing A Little Life and it is gutting me. I had a flirty two-hour FaceTime with #BritActor, which made me so happy. It literally made me feel better. He’s so charming and adorable. Then again, so is #BrazilianAndySamberg, so my cup is overflowing with out-of-town possibilities. Is there a theme here? Wacha ate a piece of chocolate out of Kelly’s purse with the wrapper still on, so I am waiting for him to shit that out. Yikes.
On Friday I met Sandy, Barry, and Joel at LT Burger, then went to Sandy’s to show him plans for my apartment, which he loved. Big relief. He thinks Gordon is a genius. Went to Allen Grubman’s, where it was a real power group: David Zaslav (who said Zucker was bragging he discovered me), Irving Azoff (talked about Dead and Company), Les Moonves (talked about Colbert) and Julie Chen (talked about Big Brother). Dinner with Jimmy and Nancy at Sen, and while I was waiting for them I ran into Alfredo Paredes across the street at the antique store. He said I have to have a child, that it is going to change my life and enrich it, and even while he was starting to talk I knew he was right. I keep waiting to be “ready” to have a kid, and hearing him, I knew that I was getting closer to that moment. I don’t know when it will be, but I do think it will happen. I see it in my life. I know there is something deeper for me in my future. I need there to be. Speaking of deep, at dinner, Jimmy said, “There’s an Olsen twin here, do you know one of them?” I said yeah, I know Ashley, and he said oh, I know MK. He went to the bathroom and came back and said it’s Ashley; her hair is really blond and she’s really tan. I went to the bathroom and the girl turned to me and I realized: A) it wasn’t Ashley, B) it wasn’t MK, and C) it was someone I knew because she said, “You’re gonna walk by me and act like you don’t know me?” So now I was fucked. Ten seconds in I realized it was Tracy Anderson, who looks nothing like an Olsen. I went back to the table and said Jimmy, you’re an asshole. He made a Lumpy Rutherford joke and then a Keshia Knight Pulliam one, so all was quickly forgiven.
Saturday breakfast at Sandy’s, then to Marci’s for lunch, then to SJP’s barbecue, which I kept calling “cute” and that was bugging Hickey. There was a movie playing down the beach for free and Scott Wittman first said it was “Pool Boys Should Do It” then “Pizza Boy: He Delivers” but everyone else said it was Paul Blart: Mall Cop. A policeman, Officer Buzzkill, came and “busted” our almost spent bonfire for 1) not being a hundred feet from the dune 2) not having a bucket of water nearby (our rosé steeped in ice didn’t count, allegedly) and 3) having amplified music (SJP’s teeny boom box playing Al Jarreau). John Slattery was the only one with an ID, so he got the ticket. Meanwhile, the irony of Paul Blart: Mall Cop playing in the distance seemed lost on this policeman. I ate almost an entire pint of chocolate chocolate chip ice cream when I got home. My blood tests all came back negative, so I threw out the stool kit.
Sunday I took a boat to the Perskys’, on Shelter Island, with the Consueloses while Jake Shears danced for us in a Speedo. Ate plenty of peppermint ice cream; Liza and I threw a football. Then to Marci’s for the last dinner of the summer with Jimmy and Nancy. Jimmy said “NO WAY, ROSÉ!” which I think should be a thing. Maybe next summer. Got a ride back to the city in a helicopter with David Geffen—the heli really takes it out of Wacha; he gets tired
after. Skyped with Mom and Dad—we talked about her friend’s funeral, and I said I think a big synagogue service and then a private graveside is the way to go and she said, “ARE WE PLANNING MY FUNERAL RIGHT NOW?” So maybe we were. She said she knows more dead people than living people, which I pointed out is a lie. But it’s true she knows a lot of dead ones.
Dinner at Good with Hickey. I ran into Joe and then—finally—Sally Field. It was good timing, because I am closing on the apartment next door tomorrow and needed to tell her I was going to begin blasting it out on Wednesday. I predicated the discussion with the news that all I had been hearing was buzz for her new movie with Max Greenfield, so that might have made the construction news a little easier to take. She said how great that I am able to make this great new apartment. Had a massage from Adam outside at nine and got a lot of thinking done. Topics included my radio launch next week, construction, and what it will mean to share a wall with Sally Field.
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2015—NYC
Martha Stewart shamed my Ferragamo shoes right before air: “Those shoes are the ugliest color. They’re, like, cowboy-boot brown.”
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2015
Married to Medicine reunion all day. Got a text that Serena lost, so tomorrow’s U.S. Open is gonna be boring. Pup play date with Ricky Van Veen and Moxie, then Raoul’s with SJP, Matthew, Hickey, and Sedaris—our 9/11 memorial club. We walked by the firehouse on Sixth Avenue near Houston to pay our respects and walked back to Fifteenth Street and wondered on the way where, among other things, all the ice cream stores have gone. We went back to my house and all hung out on the terrace.
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2015
It was fun waking up on a Saturday in the city for the first time in four months. Stopped by the construction site—Surfin is seriously in the running to be the new super of the building! I told him I would do whatever I could to help. Stopped in a newsstand and flipped through the new Vanity Fair and saw the pic of all the late-night hosts except for me and my eyes crossed. They had the Comedy Central guys who haven’t even premiered yet, and I’ve been on six years and couldn’t get in. I swear I wasn’t insecure before I got this job. Deep breath.