CNN anchor Anderson Cooper has revealed that his mom once offered to be the surrogate mother to his child.
Cooper, the father of two sons, Wyatt and Sebastian, recently told Howard Stern that years before he actually became a dad, his mother Gloria Vanderbilt so wanted to be a grandmother she offered to carry a child for him.
Cooper revealed the wild story during an appearance on The Howard Stern Show last week, seen below.
"This is like eight years before I decided to have a child. But my mom really wanted me to have a kid, and she called me up one time and she was like, 'Honey, there's something I really need to talk to you about.'"
Cooper said that it wasn't rare for Vanderbilt to start off conversations like this and that it was usually about something uneventful like redecorating her apartment. But this time was a very different experience.
"She was like, 'Well the most amazing thing happened, I went to the gynecologist the other day,'—preface this, is that my mom was 85 at the time—'and she said the most amazing thing, she told me I could still bear children.'"
Cooper went on to joke that learning how not to react to his mom's wild statements like this is part of how he's become good at maintaining his on-air poker face.
"I've spent my life not reacting to my mom's crazy statements, so I said, 'Yes mom, I think that is amazing. That a gynecologist told you that at age 85 you could still bear a child. I think that's amazing.'"
But he was surprised when he realized she wasn't thinking of having a baby herself, but rather having one for him.
"I said, 'Mom, I love you. But even for you this is bats--t crazy.'"
And you thought your mom was wacky! On social media, many people found Cooper's story hilarious.
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Sadly, Vanderbilt passed away in 2019, just a year before Cooper and former partner Benjamin Maisani welcomed Wyatt in 2020, followed by Sebastian in 2022, both via surrogate. But at least Cooper has a funny and endearing story about his boys' "bats--t" grandma to tell them one day!
