Andy Cohen opens up about the possibility of losing his career for saying something inappropriate, a fine line he walks in Bravo’s sometimes-salacious reality TV universe.
‘It’s fascinating to me,’ the St. Louis native, 56, told Vulture Monday, ‘the idea that you could say something and everything would be pulled away from you.’
The Real Housewives executive producer in the piece – titled The Last Inappropriate Man on Television How Andy Cohen survived the Reality Reckoning (at least for now) – explained how he’s already toned down aspects of his act so as not to offend people.
‘You have to be smart about what you say because there’s no nuance anymore,’ Cohen said. ‘People are just waiting to be outraged by every little thing.’
The Watch What Happens Live! host said in the piece that he enjoys ‘being provocative’ and the spontaneity and danger that come along with it.
Andy Cohen, 56, opens up in a new piece about the possibility of losing his career for saying something inappropriate, a fine line he walks in Bravo’s often-salacious reality TV universe. Pictured last month in NYC
The Watch What Happens Live! host said in the piece that he enjoys ‘being provocative’ and the spontaneity and danger that come along with it
‘It makes me feel alive in a weird way,’ he said. ‘I think it sometimes gets to the heart of who a person is. If you navigate it well, it can become something incredible and intoxicating. It’s like dancing on the water: Are you going to go over or not?’
Cohen, who also presides over the Radio Andy network on SiriusXM, admits there are times he wonders to himself if he said anything that day that will cause his cancellation.
‘Sometimes at night I’ll be in bed and I’ll think, “Huh, did I say something?”‘ Cohen said. ‘I’m always waiting for the thing that’s going to make it all fall down.’
The article noted a lawsuit filed by RHONY star Leah McSweeney earlier this year alleging Cohen was at the center of drug use – sharing cocaine with Real Housewives cast members – as well as playing favorites and fostering a toxic workplace culture.
Cohen told Vulture that he ‘has never done cocaine with cast members,’ and that he’s been candid about his entire drug history in the books he’s penned.
In the ensuing weeks, NBCU revealed a workplace investigation, Vulture reported, as ‘rumors swirled that Cohen was hiring a crisis-PR team and negotiating a “departure package.”‘
The outlet cited that amid what appeared to be a mounting career crisis for Cohen, ‘Nothing happened,’ as he remained broadcasting without interruption on his outlets, appeared at the Met Gala while his show Watch What Happens Live was renewed through next year.
From there, Cohen was cleared by eventually Bravo and NBCU ‘in their outside investigation,’ the outlet noted, adding that Cohen appeared to take a victory lap with a cover story in The Hollywood Reporter with the Mad Magazine-inspired headline, ‘What, me worry?’
Cohen appears to have survived a potential career crisis that came with a suit filed against him and Bravo by a former RHONY star
Cohen said in the piece that he’s ‘always waiting for the thing that’s going to make it all fall down’
The profile noted that it served as ‘a testament to Cohen’s great interpersonal skills that he was able, for many years, to preside over a large number of exceptionally volatile personalities before they began to turn on him’ in the form of lawsuits and other allegations.
It described the Real Housewives stars as ‘essentially gig workers who had forfeited control of their images in service to jobs that offered them high status but didn’t even provide them with health insurance,’ citing Bethenny Frankel as the lone standout to use fame from the show to reap massive wealth in business.
The outlet noted a series of further headaches for Cohen with many of the reality stars he had minted with the Real Housewives franchise.
Cohen told the outlet he had been caught off-guard over a ‘sustained attack’ led by Frankel via an effort to unionize reality stars amid last year’s entertainment industry strikes.
Lawsuits mentioned in the story included a 2022 suit from The Real Housewives of Atlanta alum Nene Leakes against, him, Bravo and NBCU alleging racism.
Another noted was Dorinda Medley’s butler Marco Vega’s filing against Bravo and NBCU over Real Housewife of Beverly Hills’ alum Brandi Glanville’s conduct during production of the Bravo series Ultimate Girls Trip: Return to Bluestone Manor in 2021.
Another suit was filed by Real Housewives of New Jersey alum Caroline Manzo, against Bravo and NBCU over Glanville’s conduct during production of Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip.
Glanville earlier this year publicly accused Cohen of sexual harassment.
Cohen pictured at last month’s Met Gala in NYC in the wake of multiple lawsuits
Cohen told Vulture that he ‘didn’t like’ being at the center of the storm, adding that ‘there was a lot of noise’ and he ‘was definitely sad about it.’
He added that his in-person experiences wildly differed from the tensions being described online.
‘I’m telling you – and it sounds like bulls*** – but when I walked into BravoCon,’ he said, ‘it was like, “Dude, get off Twitter. That’s a bunch of clickbait.” This is sanity.’
In the piece, Cohen said he enjoys the fame that comes along with his high profile in media.
‘I lived in New York for 15 years without being able to get reservations at restaurants, so yeah, of course I’m going to enjoy it,’ Cohen said, adding that he ‘had a sense of how to behave’ once he began getting recognized.
He added, ‘Then I had a lot of people who were normal people who were becoming famous, Housewives who were turning into beasts as a result. So I’m ultimately very appreciative of the whole thing. And you have to keep that perspective. You can’t go all in on it. Because it can all go away tomorrow.’
