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Andy Cohen seemingly isn’t letting any backlash to his now-viral New Year’s Eve rant get him down.
“All the validation I need,” Cohen, 57, wrote via his Instagram Stories on Friday, January 2, alongside a snap of a Starbucks coffee cup with the handwritten message, “You did amazing yesterday.”
Cohen cohosted CNN’s New Year’s Eve show live from Times Square in New York City with his friend Anderson Cooper. At the end of the night, Cohen slammed Eric Adams’ tenure as the mayor of NYC as “chaotic.” (Adams, 65, is succeeded by Zohran Mamdani, who was sworn into office at midnight on Thursday, January 1.)
“Great, you got your pardons. Go off into the sunset. We’ll fiddle with what we have, with what you’ve left us with,” Cohen told Cooper, 58, and guest B.J. Novak. “Go dance away. We’ll see you at all the parties. You’ve partied your way through four years.”
Adams issued a scathing response to Cohen several hours later, tweeting, “My response to @Andy: AA.”
“Another sloppy drunken rant,” Adams wrote via X on Thursday. “If anyone actually cares about him, they’ll tell him to get help. New Yorkers aren’t laughing with him. They are concerned about him. Public intoxication is a disease. He should seek help.”
The politician added, “He was safe in Times Square because we did our job. Again. Seek help. AAA: Andy’s Alcohol Anonymous.”
Cohen, who has not further addressed Adams’ criticism, and Cooper took tequila shots at the top of every hour during their New Year’s Eve broadcast.
“Andy, we’ve got to cut you off. I’ve seen this happen,” Novak, 46, told the Bravo star on Thursday after Cohen’s rant.
Cohen infamously went on a viral tirade during the 2021 show about the end of Bill de Blasio’s own term as NYC mayor.
“[I’ve been] watching Mayor de Blasio do his ‘victory lap’ dance after four years of the crappiest job as the mayor of New York,” Cohen lamented at the time. “The only thing that the Democrats and the Republicans can agree on is what a horrible mayor he has been, so sayonara, sucka!”
While CNN stood by Cohen at the time, he later admitted that night was a bit hazy.
“[Anderson and I] got in the car after [the CNN taping] and I saw on Twitter the rant I did about de Blasio,” Cohen said on Jimmy Kimmel Live! in February 2022. “I did not recall — though it was about 40 minutes earlier — saying, ‘Sayonara, sucka’ to the outgoing mayor of New York.”
Roy Rochlin/Getty Images Andy Cohen and Anderson Cooper are known for their hilarious — and sometimes unhinged — antics during CNN’s live New Year’s Eve broadcast. Cohen became Cooper’s cohost in 2017 when he replaced Kathy Griffin. However, the pair have known each other for decades after first crossing paths when their friends tried to […]
He added, “It is super fun getting drunk on CNN and just raging on a soapbox. There were endorphins that I was releasing. I was like, ‘This is good!’”
Cohen and Cooper were subsequently barred from drinking alcohol during the next year’s show before the network’s change of heart in 2023.
“Well, let me say this. Around 10:45 on New Year’s Eve every year, I become the straight man of our broadcast, OK?” Cohen joked during an appearance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert last month, hinting Cooper gets more drunk on air. “I am driving the ship of CNN starting at 10:45 [p.m]. It’s the truth. I hear the slur in his voice. I know his voice so well. And last year, I really did get him a little drunk on New Year’s Eve.”
If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, contact the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).
