The Andy Cohen Diaries (3 page)

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2013

I apparently did
not
kill the engagement thing last night and tonight went to a party for the launch of Esquire TV thinking that I had to definitively put the kibosh on the rumors. TMZ asked me about it when I was coming into the party and I did my spiel and then said, “So no, I am not banging Sean Avery, but I would like to.” I can't imagine that's not running.

Major
Housewives
drama offscreen this week. We are replacing several women in two cities. So far it's been sad and energizing all at once. Hopefully we are adding life to both series by shaking things up. I spent forty-five minutes on the phone today with one of their husbands who was begging for his wife's job back, saying they have no backup plan, and I was telling him he never should have banked on this as his career. I had this same conversation a couple years ago with a (crying, literally) husband from another city and it is not pleasant. I feel horrible for these guys who had careers before the show and then went all-in on their wives' reality TV stardom. Let me say this once and for all: bad idea. Reality TV careers aren't forever. Then Ramona called upset because I had invited Jill back to play tennis for a scene. Apparently a cast revolt was brewing about her coming back for even one scene. I completely understood her point of view, actually, and we killed the shoot (which necessitated a long follow-up call with Jill). And then last night NeNe was on with Paula Patton (she brought me a gorgeous bottle of whiskey that she said Robin Thicke jacked from their hotel room for me) and I did something to piss Linnethia off and I can't figure out what it was, but she shut down on the air. Drama in four cities. I kind of love it.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2013

I saw the Irish chef last night. He slept over. Fun, but I had three hours of insomnia in the middle of the night. My mind was churning and in the light of day I'm not sure about what.

I went to the City Clerk's office at the crack of dawn to get my marriage officiate license because I'll be officiating a live wedding on
WWHL
soon. Daryn filled out the paperwork online and then I just had to show up at City Hall to make it official. Couples who were there to get married were recognizing me and I was handing out tickets to
WWHL
as wedding presents left and right. But I was in such a bad mood, so tired. I gave tickets to Melinda, the lady behind the counter, and the sick thing is when these people all do come to the show I will have forgotten who they are but have to take pictures with them after the show and I won't want to do it because I'll be irritable and want to get out the door. I'm setting myself up to be irritated.

My mood improved at work. I got a nice email from Jacqueline, very Zen about not coming back to
Jersey
, and we let go of a couple Wives on
Real Housewives of Orange County
. One said she was too busy to take the call from the head of the production company and put him on with her intern. Her man later called back and was shocked to hear why the EP was calling. Then the weirdest cake arrived from Lady Gaga, red velvet cheesecake with white chocolate on top with Lady Gaga Art Pop written on it … the note said “Love, Gaga” in teeny little capitals. It looked like—I don't know what actually–robot writing? Speaking of weird handwriting, our renaissance PA, Ryan, who was making the Gaga pee-fume, writes down what I'm wearing every night for
Bravotv.com
. I noticed he has really unique handwriting, and he holds the pen in an odd manner. He told me he learned to paint before he learned to write, so he holds the pen like a paintbrush. I just had to hug him. I was like, “When do I find out something bad about you?” I'm borderline inappropriate with our PAs.

That TMZ thing ran all over the place and of course the headline was “Andy Cohen: I'm not banging Sean Avery but I would like to!” At least the story is dead and I haven't misrepresented myself. I have to say the comments on gay websites—I talked to Anderson about this—you just can't read them. They are the meanest. Gay people will eat other gay people alive. After all these years putting myself out there, I am pretty thick skinned, but the shit gay people say about me is, wow. I am apparently a lecherous, disgusting, old, crazy, cliché, star-fucking, ladylike, bossy bottom. That's it in a nutshell. (They without fail add the “bottom” moniker at the end. As punctuation.)

A perfect dinner with John Hill at Pastis, where I had the French onion soup and branzino. We sat at the same corner table I sat at the night before 9/11 with Natasha Richardson and Hickey after the Michael Jackson concert. We'd come late-night after the concert and SJP coincidentally had walked in from a big fashion event and sat with us. Walking out, we saw the towers and all commented what a perfect night it was. Towers are gone. Natasha is gone. Michael Jackson is gone.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2013

Today's Housewife psychodrama involved me on the phone with someone in the throes of being demoted from full Housewife to recurring role. She wanted to be in the opening titles and I had to tell her no. She wanted to be in every episode, and I couldn't guarantee that either. Her husband was on the call, of course. At one point he said, “We pay our taxes, unlike some of your other non-tax-paying Housewives.” Good for you! And apparently there's a former OC Wife in tears fighting her dismissal and I'm expecting a call from her any minute.

Glamour
magazine asked me to interview Lady Gaga for their Women of the Year cover story. Allegedly her people asked for me, which if true is flattering. But the reality of the situation is I don't want to offend Madonna by being up Lady Gaga's ass. I want to interview Madonna!

Went to the launch party of the new
FourTwoNine
magazine. Walking in, I saw a huge poster of the cover, which is of SJP and me, and it's pretty gorgeous, I have to admit. You'd think that if there was ever a huge blown-up poster of yourself you would want it. And indeed someone asked me, “Do you want that poster?” and I immediately thought, “Where in the hell are you going to put a billboard of yourself?” This has happened before at Bravo and I've figured that my mom would want the posters. And of course she says, “What the hell am I going to do with THAT!? I don't want to STARE AT YOU all day!” So the truth of the situation is, nobody wants your blown-up poster of yourself—not you and not even your mother. Bruce (wearing a T-shirt that said “I Love Madonna” in rhinestones) and Liza came to the party, so that was a godsend. The Irish chef was there too.

When I got home I was doing whatever the hell I do in my apartment and I walked into the bathroom and saw a huge insect—an enormous waterbug—on the soap tray next to the sink. You would've thought there was a lion in the tub by the way I screamed bloody murder. It was like the fucking Hunger Games! I raced to the intercom and breathlessly, urgently called the doorman. “
Are there any porters in the building who can come up and kill this huge bug in my apartment?”
(This has happened before—roughly quarterly.) They were all gone, so I gave the doorman my best offer: I would give him twenty bucks if he left his post and came to kill the intruder. He said he couldn't leave his post. I told him that I would watch the front door if he came up and killed the bug. He said fine, but that it would be a few minutes. I went to close the bathroom door and peered in to look at the bear, I mean bug, and it was gone. Nowhere to be found. I called off the dogs, closed the door, sealed the perimeter by putting a towel under the door, and slept (fitfully) in the extra room.

I really need a dog. I'm lonely and I need something to care about, take care of, and think about other than myself or my job. I've been tossing this around all year, but tonight sealed the deal. Can dogs kill bugs? At least we could go through the terror together. I'm going to start browsing.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2013

Today I filmed the
Queer Eye
reunion and it was a blast.
QE
had already premiered when I joined Bravo but I was an EP on close to one hundred episodes over the next few years. Now here I was hosting the reunion, on the couch with those guys. I had forgotten how groundbreaking that show was in its moment. Funny to think what a big deal it was ten years ago, seeing gay guys making straight guys' lives better, but it was. I'm proud to have been a little part of it. We had to shoot at the crack of dawn because Ted had to catch a flight to Miami for work and we were all giving him a lot of shit. Those guys haven't missed a beat. But I mean, you can't get a word in edgewise with them.

The good news about starting so early was ending early with a boozy lunch outside at Rosemary's with John Jude, John Hill, and Deirdre. We laughed a lot.

Tonight—Friday night—two Housewives kept sending me “urgent” texts. I was getting all bent out of shape because I knew they weren't “urgent” and do we not live in a society where there are appropriate times to have work conversations, or do business hours not apply in 2013? Or is it a Housewives thing? Do business hours not apply to Housewives? I don't know why I was getting my panties in a bundle but I was Mr. Standing On Principle and told them we would speak Monday morning.

One of the porters came by and did a walk-through of the bathroom, sprayed it down, and declared it safe for use. He said to keep the drain closed in the sink. How that monster fit through the
drain
is beyond me. I never found it, by the way, which means that it's still out there.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2013

John Hill and I went to look for a dog at the North Shore Animal League on Long Island. I met a few dogs but there were so many and it was overwhelming. I think I want a Havanese (they're small and hypoallergenic) but I didn't connect with any there. Oh, and when I arrived at the shelter I threw my car keys out with my coffee cup, so I spent twenty panicked minutes retracing my steps and found them in the dog-shit-filled trash can. Nice. Then I drove all the way out to Exit 70 to meet this Havapoo named Hemingway I'd found online. It was a long schlep in the reverse direction and I really didn't want to do it, but my Aunt Judy, who is a mega dog lady (some might say
crazy
dog lady), had blown up Hemingway's photo and was using it as her screensaver, so she was convinced I was messing with fate and guilted me into driving to Exit 70 to meet him. I spent an hour trying to figure out if I was in love. I decided I probably wasn't, so I left.

Went to a dinner party at Bruce's tonight and stared at pictures of Hemingway, trying to figure out if I was in love with the dog. The consensus in the room—John Hill, Liza, Amanda, and Lynn—was that I'm not, so the search continues. Bruce burned himself on a pan, so the painkillers came out and then we played “Heads Up!” It got sloppy at the end.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2013

Today I interviewed Teresa and Joe for a special about the thirty-nine federal counts against them and it was like pulling teeth. They are either very un-introspective or in complete denial. Or both. Another challenging layer was that their lawyers were there and didn't want them revealing certain details. I said, “
So
 … you guys are facing fifty years in prison,” and they were like, “Is it fifty years? We thought it was a hundred. Is it fifty years both or just one or…” And I said, “Is it a hundred?” And they said, “I think it's a hundred.” So that's something they are going to want to clarify with their attorneys.

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2013

I spoke to one of the recently laid-off Housewives today. She is—to put it mildly—not pleased about not being asked back to the show, and she wanted me to know that she is a businesswoman and that everything she does is through a business perspective and that she is being punished for being the
realist (real-est) Housewife
. This from a woman with a generous amount of dye and Botox and fillers and all the rest. Apparently everyone tells her that her Q score is very high. I told her that I was working with different data. (People are always telling me about their high Q scores, but I guess if people tell you they love you all day everywhere you go, why wouldn't you believe your Q scores would be through the roof?) She's shocked we don't want to do a spinoff series with her. I told her we need to freshen up the show, and that we have two great new girls ready to come on. And she goes, “Well, that went so wrong for you with New York.” And I told her it actually didn't, and that I would do that again, the season was a success because we refreshed the show. And then she asked why we are keeping Vicki on
OC
and I said that everyone is separate and I wasn't going to go through each woman and debate their worthiness.

This morning Surfin said the upstairs neighbor has taken a turn for the worse. The son is visiting and the son never visits. Lord strike me down.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2013

I've decided that, no matter what, the thing that you always say to a woman is “You're too thin. Everyone is worried about you.” Who doesn't want to hear that? I said it today on
Wendy Williams
, but I actually meant it with her. She's so thin that she seemed kind of shaky. You don't realize how good her body is because she's really top-heavy, and you can tell she's a TV star because her head is huge. (People on TV have huge heads. It's true.) She is so fun; I could talk to her for a long time. Then I went to the “world's largest picnic” on Pier 84, sponsored by Hellmann's. It was, no surprise, a paid appearance. Katie Holmes and Mario Batali were there and it just made me realize everyone's on the dole.

There was this guy, Zach, who was my handler at the picnic. He was cute and there was some kind of energy between us—after half an hour I knew that I either had slept with him, met him at a gym, or almost gone on a date with him. I knew we had interacted over text in some way, so when I left I looked in my contacts and thought, “Oh great, he's in my phone.” I texted him and said, “I'm so sorry it took me so long to figure out who you were,” and then I got a text back saying, “Who is this?” And I said, “This is Andy,” and he flipped back, “Andy who?” “Andy Cohen,” I said. And he said, “Oh, I haven't seen you in forever,” and I said, “Hahah haha I deserve that,” and he said, “I don't get it.” Turns out I was texting my former massage therapist in the Hamptons, Zach. So then I took advantage of the situation and made an appointment. He was a good masseur! Then I got a text a few hours later from Zach from the event. He
did
have my phone number but I still haven't figured out why. I've decided we didn't sleep together. I would've remembered.