by Andy Cohen
We walked over to SJP’s for dinner. The twins were like dolls, and James was hilarious. The food was really good. From there I met up with #BAS, who was coming from Christmas with his family. Amy asked him if he had “a touch of Negro” in him. In fact he has 18 percent, he said. He’s smart and has answers for everything. The four of us walked over to Bruce and Bryan’s, where we stayed for several hours. #BAS passed everybody’s test.
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 26, 2015–TUESDAY, DECEMBER 29, 2015—MUSTIQUE, SAINT LUCIA, GUADELOUPE
Had a great time with #BAS, and the truth is I wrote nothing down so I could just focus on being with him for our entire vacationette. We were so chill together; it was lovely. It was just us and Barry and DVF, so it was a four-day double date. Watched Amy (double-loved), The Diary of a Teenage Girl (loved), The Walk (I had notes—for example, I hate straight-to-camera narration) and ten minutes of Annie Hall but #BAS wouldn’t shut up about whether Woody Allen was a pedophile. #BAS is the voice of the PC generation. Also, it seems Brazilians are very clean, which is a virtue—lots of showers. We scuba dove, and it’s even more romantic with your own fella undersea as opposed to a paid employee. Ain’t that the way, though?! Left the boat mid-trip to get ready for New Year’s Eve, and when we returned to the city went straight to Café Un Deux Trois so #BAS could meet Hickey, Jeff, Matthew, and SJP. He once again passed everyone’s test. I will say he looks a lot younger than twenty-eight; I thought they were going to card him at one point. Saw Bob Saget, who’s gonna be on New Year’s Eve Game Night with me and said he’s not drinking to support Stamos, which is sweet.
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2015—NYC
Rehearsed all day in the famed Studio 8-H at 30 Rock and if it doesn’t go great tomorrow, at least I can say I hosted a live show on NBC from SNL’s studio. I’m hosting New Year’s Eve Game Night at ten, then at eleven they’re going to walk me, Rob Riggle, and Whitney Cummings into the middle of Times Square, where we are joining Carson and NeNe to talk about the events of the year and count down to the new year. Among other things, I am worried that this Game Night show is too square—the guests and categories and games—but it’s a big mass show for NBC; it’s not supposed to be edgy. After rehearsal I took a big group (#BAS, Amanda, Jim, Liza, SJP, Grac, Neal, Jeanne and Fred) to see Sandra Bernhard at Joe’s Pub. She was incredible; she turned my day around. Also, I got to introduce #BAS in one fell swoop to everybody he hadn’t met. He gets along with everybody, of any age. I did worry that Sandra’s references were maybe too old for him and his friend Daley, but they got the gist.
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 31, 2015
The Day from Hell started with me wide awake at five-thirty worrying about the night. I wasn’t getting picked up for the Today show until seven-thirty, so I had two hours to envision everything going horribly wrong. Saw Bob Harper in the lobby; he said, “Oh, are you here for the Today show?” and I said, “No, honey, I’m here to see the tree.” He was with a very cute guy who it turns out is his boyfriend, so there’s another one that bit the dust. It’s okay, I’ve got #BAS! Carson was very nice and solicitous; he gave me a bottle of Maker’s Mark and some ginger ale with a nice note saying he had enjoyed getting to know me and looked forward to tonight. That’s class. From there I shot a cold open with Stamos, Whitney Cummings, Carson, and Saget. Stamos is crazy nice—so’s Saget. Cummings went through a list of black celebrities and told me they’re all on the DL. I mean, she called out everybody! That was exciting.
Met Hickey and Jeff for a cheeseburger at Village Den, then went right back uptown to do blocking for Game Night. Then we went to Times Square for a meeting with Carson and the others, where they tested our earpieces and ran through it all. I had a bad feeling. Then we did a run-through with all the celebrity guests at 8:00 p.m. (including Bob Harper, J. B. Smoove, Sasheer Zamata, Cummings) and it was really low energy. Stamos had a really bad back pain and it just felt off, not to mention that I said so many gay things that Stamos turned to me and said, “You’re the new Harvey Fierstein”—which was not meant as shade, but I took the note and cut a bunch of gay jokes from the script immediately. Around nine, I sat in the SNL host’s dressing room having a major crisis of confidence about myself. Jimmy emailed me from Jamaica with a poem he wrote, and I sent one back.
His:
The moon is up, the ball is down
2016 is new in town.
May your dreams come true—wish on a star
And Bernard and Stanley are working the bar.
(And currently we are out of gin)
I said:
Sitting in the SNL host dressing quarters,
About to host a show but I need a doctor without borders
Right about now I could use lots of lucks
Although I really really like my tux
Soon it will be over and I won’t feel so dark
Cuz I’m gonna drink all of m’ginge and Maker’s Mark.
After I sent it I realized I had to get out of my funk. I listened to John Hill on Radio Andy, which was a step in the right direction. Then Bob Greenblatt came into my dressing room, which was a step back because the head of NBC showing up before going live on the network could rattle a secure man! He was nothing but enthusiastic, so that made me feel great. The PA with an accent who I thought was British but is from Long Island arrived to tell me there’s no drinking in Times Square, so I can’t have Maker’s Mark on set. I said get a Thermos and put some in there, sweetie, so I can have some juice while I’m sitting out there at midnight with the folks.
I was a little shaky at the top of the show; I started talking too soon and called Carson Daly “Carson Davy.” With the chairman of NBC there. I recovered and the rest was just general fun and games. I have no clue how it was on TV but I’m pretty sure I was screaming loudly the entire time. When it was over I walked to Times Square with my canteen, Whitney, Rob Riggle, three security guys, and Caroline, my makeup artist, who wasn’t giving me a read on how the show was, which was not exactly a confidence boost. Then I got a text from Mom saying, “That was fun. You looked great. Somewhat of a shitshow. Break a leg with the next half.”
While sitting in the middle of Times Square, I got a text from the British PA from Long Island saying the cars from the car company are all running forty-five minutes behind. I said, No, honey, I have been working since 7:00 a.m. and I am gonna bet that NBC is going to find me a car that will be on the corner of Forty-Sixth and Sixth at 12:31. Then I went on the air and said, “I am feeling so grateful and blessed, and we are all so lucky that we have what we do in this country.” I was Mr. Pious after bitch slapping the PA via text about a stupid car. What a fraud I am! Midnight was euphoric and incredible even though I stood up and watched NeNe and Carson hug, while Whitney hugged Rob Riggle. I hugged the air, which I’m praying isn’t some kind of nasty metaphor for 2016. I’m still not sure if it was worth it for the crowd standing there holding it in for nine hours but it was wonderful for me to be there and be a part of it. Text from Mom who did not enjoy Whitney Cummings.
The car was there at twelve-thirty and I left to meet Anderson and Ben at ASC. We traded New-Year’s-Eve-on-TV stories, and Anderson made me feel better about my performance. He’d just come off four hours live with Kathy Griffin. It felt great to be able to see my friends at the end of the night.
WINTER/SPRING 2016
IN WHICH I …
• REUNITE THE FRIENDS FROM FRIENDS,
• GET THE GOLDEN TICKET FROM OPRAH,
• OFFEND TAYLOR SWIFT,
• AND THROW OUT ANOTHER PITCH.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 1, 2016—NYC—MIAMI
Woke up way too early analyzing last night’s shows. Part of my problem is that I’m not used to surrendering creative control, except in the case of a beauty pageant, which is meant to be ridiculous. But the whole reason I did it was to invest in a future with NBC, and maybe we can make it better next year.
As I was leaving the building for the airport, Richie, in the elevator, told me ho
w much he loved New Year’s Eve Game Night and repeated a joke Bob Saget said, so maybe I’m being too hard on the whole thing. My attitude adjusted when I saw a hot guy at my gate at LaGuardia—blond, kinda Southern-looking, bowl haircut, good skin, and pecs—and got in line behind him to board. I felt like the gods were with me and we were gonna be seated next to each other, but actually we were across the aisle. Then a lady came to my seat and begged me to switch with her. She was sitting next to Will! (That’s what I’m calling him—he looks like the actor who played Will Cortlandt on All My Children, who is now a weatherman.) In my head I was like a preteen at a One Direction concert, but when I sat next to Will I acted very busy and retreated into my music while he played Tetris. I was beginning to feel like 2016 is my year.
He ordered a Cobb salad, and I switched from the cheese ravioli to “what he’s having.” Will and I are starting the year right! He ordered a cocktail (okay, one of us is starting it right) and I used that as an opportunity to start talking. He said he’d had a mellow New Year’s Eve with friends and was going to Miami solo but has friends there. We broke off the convo and I noticed that he has long eyelashes, with which I became obsessed. And his skin is great. He ordered his second vodka and I got back into it with him. I asked if he has a girlfriend and he said no, but then I asked if I could set him up with one and he said he is seeing someone, which was immediately confusing. He really didn’t seem gay, though. He likes sports and seems a bit square. But he’s from Chicago, so maybe he’s a Midwest gay? Will told me he is an optometrist, and then explained to me what that means. I said, “I’m familiar with an eye doctor,” and asked him about my contacts and then thirty seconds into the explanation was very bored of hearing about my eyes. He ribbed me about wearing gas-permeable lenses and we guffawed over my having to still travel with contact solution and cleanser. Optometrist humor! His eyelashes were so pretty. I told him! He said they are real and not Latisse. He is thirty-five.
We went back to solo time and then I said, “So I can’t set you up, huh?” and he said, “No, but I could set you up because you’re single, right?” And I said yes, kind of—I still didn’t know exactly what was happening between us. Will asked if I am a “… guy or mix it up?” I thought he was asking if I was bisexual, but I didn’t hear him say “Soho House” before the word “guy” and that is an entirely different thing, though it got me thinking that Soho House is indeed littered with bisexual men so maybe it isn’t so different. I got up to go pee and when I came back I said, “So your lady is in NYC?” He said yes she is. So that was that. Our conversation petered out. As we were landing I realized I still didn’t have his name. Did I want to burst my fantasy of “Will” by finding out? I pondered.… “I’m Andy,” I finally said. He extended his perfect, if not a hair small, hand and said, “Randy.” And I thought, “OMG, he’s Randy. Randy! Random! Fun! Flirty! Retro! Randy!” He had just gotten hotter. We landed and went our separate ways, forever. A few hours later at the Palace in Miami I got a text from Mom saying, “Get a hold of yourself. Kissing twinks at a gay bar ” “Excuse me?” I said. “On Facebook. At Palace bar,” she texted. I felt like I was seventeen and in trouble. I looked at my Facebook and this Brazilian friend had tagged me in a short video of him and me in which I drunkenly turn to him and kiss him. It went to all my followers including Evelyn Cohen, who must’ve been traumatized in her robe in St. Louis! I yelled at my ex-friend, untagged myself, and texted my mom: “That’s not a twink it’s my friend Eric it’s fine. Go watch a movie!” She said, “YOU go to bed!” When I did finally go to bed I saw that I had forgotten my contact solution. That would’ve been fun to tell Will/Randy, but we broke up.
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2016—NYC
Mom sent me an email saying, “You seem exhausted and uncleansed.” When I dug deeper I learned she meant that I usually clean myself out in January and I wasn’t doing it this year. She’s right; this year I just decided to monitor my drinking better rather than give it up altogether, which may be a cop-out.
Ran into #BritActor on the street. He is in Love—capital “L”—and I felt better having just had a great holiday with #BAS. Plus I heard from Jake in Boston today; he had lost my number. He is selling a lot of motorcycles. Bravo did focus groups on WWHL, which were all pretty positive, but they also asked people who had stopped watching the show why they’d quit and, among other things, several said that I seem “disengaged.” That was like a slap in my face. Here I am doing my dream job, and for anyone to sense anything short of euphoria coming off me means I’m doing it badly. I’m worried that they are right—sometimes I am disengaged and need to change my outlook. It’s been six and a half years. There were some other good suggestions for ways to tweak the show. We’re going to change how our calls work because viewers said it was holding up the show. So now instead of me saying “What’s your name and from where are you calling?” the control room will just tell me the caller’s name and city and that’s how I’ll introduce the call. It’s quicker.
THURSDAY, JANUARY 7, 2016
Boxed with the Ninj. Boy, do I feel old. I couldn’t wait for it to be over. Had a call with Hunter Pence from the San Francisco Giants, who seems interested in doing a radio show. Was supposed to meet with Holt today but Gillian said Steve, her boss, had eye surgery and couldn’t do it. I thought that meant he was getting his eyes done, but it turns out it actually was eye surgery. Dinner with Justin and Jason at the modern-looking new sushi place that took over where Miyagi was on Thirteenth Street, which I’ve been checking out for a few weeks. There are only three tables inside and a sushi bar, and as soon as we sat down we knew we’d made a terrible mistake. The menu is basically either a sushi sampler from the chef for $150 per person or some random à la carte items. I had tuna with caviar for forty bucks and got two slices of pizza on my way home. Massage by Adam.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 8, 2016
Went by the apartment and found out Surfin officially got the superintendent job! He showed me his new apartment—he gets to move into the building, so now he’s my neighbor. Checked in on mine and there were at least ten workers there. I don’t know what the hell any of them were doing, but there was a lot of activity and they enjoyed seeing the dog. Wacha found pieces of pizza in three separate sidewalk spots in the Village today. He is disgusting. Saw Star Wars: The Force Awakens again with Hickey and it seemed less great than the first time.
SUNDAY, JANUARY 10, 2016
Wacha is the best. We slept in while it poured out, until 11:00 a.m. He’ll stay in bed with me until I signal him that we’re going to the kitchen. Tonight was one of those nights where everything went wrong on the show. I chose from lists of questions to ask Shereé and Sherri and someone mistook my marks for questions I didn’t want to ask, so when I got on air there were two cards full of questions I didn’t want to go near. Then a caller switched his question and asked something we’d just exhausted. I got a huge offer last week—well over seven figures—to do an ad about irritable bowel syndrome. I said no but told Mom that I was considering it, just to see what she’d say. She flipped. “You can’t talk about your BOWELS on television, ANDY! YOU CAN’T!”
MONDAY, JANUARY 11, 2016
I woke up and looked at Twitter to see that David Bowie had died. I had a pit in my stomach about it all day. David, the elevator operator, said he didn’t know about Bowie and he’d have to google him. He’s gonna google David Bowie? Wow.
TUESDAY, JANUARY 12, 2016
Had a meeting at Holt; it seems like they want to publish this diary. NBC announced a new deal with Seth Meyers—they’re giving him 10:00 p.m. on New Year’s Eve. If I had to think about improving NBC on New Year’s Eve, a 10:00 p.m. show with Seth Meyers is certainly a great solution! Hopefully we’ll figure something else for me to do with NBC this year that doesn’t involve leaving a boat with #BAS. Why do I need to do New Year’s, anyway? I am having fun doing every one of my five current jobs, and that should be enough. And I can’t wait for my West Coast weekend on t
our with Anderson. Bruce is meeting us in San Francisco. Fun!
We were rehearsing the show and Zookeeper Rick was gonna be behind the bar with a baby kangaroo, a hawk, and then a tarantula. I am deathly afraid of tarantulas, so I put the kibosh on that and wound up with the kangaroo on my lap. When I got back into my office Wacha went crazy—I must’ve smelled to him like Lady Gaga in the meat dress. The Rams’ greedy owner with the bad hair system, Kroenke, announced he’s moving the team back to LA. I called Mom and said I want to give him the finger on air on behalf of St. Louis. She said, “I think that’s PERFECTLY APPROPRIATE.”
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 13, 2016
Khloé Kardashian—my favorite Kardashian, in case you were wondering—was on the show and there is simultaneously nothing and everything to discuss. At Bar Centrale I met Hickey, Matthew, Laura Linney and Marc, and our friend Tony from the UK. Tony’s very young, severely handicapped niece just passed away, and we were all being very sad about it but after a while he assured us somewhat guiltily that in some ways it was a relief to his sister and family—so much so that he took a picture of his niece in her coffin because she was the first dead person he’d ever seen and she looked peaceful and beautiful and without any pain in her body. He said he was tempted to post it on Instagram as some kind of an art piece to shock people out of their fake-amazing show-off lives. I got it, as an art piece. We all agreed he couldn’t do it, though. I asked, Is the picture in your phone? And indeed it was. I was freaked out just seeing the phone on the table. “I want to see it,” Laura said. “Show me.” Hickey and I huddled like scared schoolgirls while Laura inspected the sad picture. She took it like a man. She said maybe he could post just the hands. Then we moved on for a half hour, talking about everything but sad things until Tony reached for his phone to look at his calendar and when he turned it on the photo was there and I saw it by mistake and was horribly traumatized but of course we were all in a fit of giggles because it was so random.