Andy Cohen - ‘Madonna says I’m a trouble-making queen’

0:03When did making plans get this complicated? It's time to streamline with WhatsApp. The secure messaging app that brings the whole group together. Use polls to settle dinner plans. Send event invites and pin messages so no one forgets mom's 60th. And never miss a meme or milestone. All protected with end-to-end encryption. It's time for WhatsApp. Message privately with everyone. Learn more at whatsapp.com. This week's episode is brought to you by HeyU. It will come as no surprise to most of you that I absolutely love Hey You. For the price of your morning latte, you can get access to all the freshest and most iconic reality TV on the same day as new episodes air in the USA.

0:46I'm obsessed with it and you should be too. And what's more, The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills is launching exclusively on Hey You from today, the 20th of November. strap in for a new season of drama where Kyle and Dorit not only find themselves navigating their fractured friendship but also deal with the fallout from their respective marriages a new housewife joins the cast Bosoma St John Oscar nominated actress and Sutton's BFF Jennifer Tilly and Kathy Hilton officially join the group as well watch new episodes of The Real Housewives from Beverly Hills to Salt Lake City the same day they air new episodes in the USA without ads and on any device only on Hey You.

1:37Welcome to How To Fail, the podcast that believes all failure can be an opportunity to grow. I have an extremely exciting announcement for you, which is there is a whole new range of how to fail merch designed by me with a little help, sustainable and a whole range. We have quarter zips, we have socks, we have hoodies, we have caps. It's all designed to help you wear your failures with pride. Just go to elizabethdaymerch.com. That's elizabethdaymerch, all one word, dot com and place your orders there. Thank you so, so much.

2:17When my guest today was inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame, he was described as America's gay best friend. It's true that Andy Cohen has befriended many millions of people around the globe, even if they've never actually met him. Whether it's as the unflappable, hilarious host of the Real Housewives reunions or fronting the high-low pop-cultural behemoth Watch What Happens Live, or whether it's as the author of five deliciously gossipy New York Times bestselling books, many of us feel not only that we know him, but that we love him and have much to thank him for. Cohen was born in St. Louis, studied broadcast journalism at Boston University and started out as an intern at CBS News.

3:04He became vice president of original programming at Bravo in 2004. Two years later, he was exec producing the first ever Real Housewives series. In the 20 years since, the Real Housewives has become one of the most culture-shaping franchises on television, and Coen a superstar. He once appeared as Zeus in a Lady Gaga music video. New York Magazine recently said Coen was known for his willingness to go there, an assessment more than borne out by the fact he once got Meryl Streep to play Shag Marry Kill and Ralph Fiennes to record a dramatic monologue as real housewife Lisa Barlow. I like being provocative, Cohen says.

3:46It makes me feel alive in a weird way. It's dangerous, it's spontaneous. I think it sometimes gets to the heart of who a person is. Andy Cohen, welcome to How to Fail. Thanks for having me, Elizabeth. I'm so excited to have you. What a nice intro. Well, I have so much to thank you for personally. Oh. You honestly, I don't know what I would have done without the television that you have created and the presence that you are on screen over the last decade. That makes me very happy to hear, especially all the way across the pond. Yes. Well, we're delighted to have you in the UK. Yes. And you're here because you're attending Hey You Fan Fest.

4:25Yes. And I am a huge Hey You fan. And I'm looking forward to the festivities. Where does your love of provocation come from, do you think? I don't know, but it's funny. I think my son has it too. This summer, he did something horribly provocative and then said, I just did it to get you riled up. And I was like, oh my God, this is exactly what I used to do with your grandma. I think the idea of speaking about the thing that is meant to be the thing that you don't speak about or the thing that everybody is thinking but maybe is less than polite to discuss is exactly the thing I want to discuss. And it's almost like I have some weird instinct.

5:08I'm like, oh, my God, how am I going to bring this up? Like, it works well on television, I have to say. Do you ever get nervous before bringing the thing up? Usually I've figured out in my head how I'm going to bring it up, and then I just go for it. I think it just feels exhilarating. Do you remember loving TV when you were young? Oh, yes. I was, you know, and any time I beat myself up thinking, oh, I let Ben watch TV a little too long today, I think, dude, you were just parked in front of the television for most of my childhood. I loved it so much. And I think I wanted to be on it. and I know I wanted to work in it.

5:49It was just the thing I was most interested in. Who was the person that you were most interested with? Everything. Charlie's Angels, Dynasty, The Brady Bunch, big award shows, Battle of the Network stars. Everything felt like a big deal when I was growing up because there were only three channels and everything that was, it was the age where Americans all gathered around their television and they all watch the same shows. So there was a community around television that's much, I mean, obviously there's a community around Housewives. There are so many subgroups now of communities, but there it was truly the era of mass entertainment.

6:31You mentioned Housewives there and the sense of community that has grown up around it. And I'm a proud member of that, a proud and vociferous member of that community. No, thank you. It's a great community. It really is. It's tolerant. It's fabulous. I listen to all of the podcasts. Oh, great. And I set. What's your favorite Housewives podcast? Bitch Sesh. They're so good. They're great. Well, I've heard you on Bitch Sesh. I'm big fans of theirs. Yes. They are great. And I do love Watch What Crappens. I don't know how you feel about it. They're funny. Yeah, they're great. They're so great. The name.

6:59They do a very funny impersonation of me. You know, it goes to show how long the Housewives has been going. I remember when these Housewives podcasts started, and I remember hearing about a few of them at the very beginning. And I was territorial. I was like, well, wait, you can't be doing this. And then I was like, dude, they're doing a podcast all about your shows. This is good. And I think one of the things that people often get wrong if they haven't watched Housewives is that they dismiss it as superficial and trivial. They get everything wrong because they just say, it's toxic and they throw wine and it's only about confrontation.

7:34And of course, it's about so much more. If it was only about that, it would not still be on the air because that would be cartoonish and black and white. And it just, that's not sustainable. So. What does the term housewife mean to you? Well, it was always meant as a wink. You know, we, the show was a wink to the show Desperate Housewives, which was a big hit on ABC's scripted show. We were like, okay, well, this is the real housewives. And of course there was not that much real about them because they were early adopters of Botox, breast implants, pieces in the hair. They were augmenting themselves in a quest of youth and beauty.

8:17Some of the forerunners of that quest on television. You know, at the time that we started, Botox was not a mass thing and the housewives were doing it. So I think that the real term was a wink. Listen, to be a housewife in 2024 is just to be a modern woman. So I think it's turning that up inside itself. I always feel that Housewives is the first place that I see certain things that it takes much longer to see on scripted TV. So for instance, dating as a widow, for instance, the reality of IVF, the first place I saw that was Housewives when I was going through it. And so actually I find it a revolutionary form of television.

9:04I do too. I've, by the way, I mean, look, I'm a gay man. I've learned so much about women from watching the show. I know more about fibroids because of Cynthia Bailey. And then, but it really, but so many of the housewives have had fibroids. Yeah. I'm, I'm, I'm all ears. Have you had plastic surgery? Because you often ask housewives. Look at my face. Your face is beautiful. Well, thank you. I've not touched it. I've never even had Botox. Joan Rivers, before she died, used to beg me to get Botox. And every guy that I know who's hosting a TV show, mainly all of them are younger than me or about my age.

9:43They all have had Botox. I look at their foreheads. I'm like, your forehead does not move. But I haven't done it yet. Why? It's not something that I think I need to do. I don't know who I would be doing it for. I will probably do it soon, maybe. I don't know. Okay. I don't think you need to, but I was just interested. Yeah. Yeah. Because so many of the housewives, I think, feel under pressure to look a certain way. They all do. So many women today. And men. I mean, I know so many gay guys. A group of gay guys came over to my house this summer, and I was like, I said to my friend who brought them, I said, this is like botched.

10:25I said, this has to stop. I said, you're a generation. What are you doing to yourselves? You're handsome young men. Stop this. So I think people need to get a hold of themselves. Yes. Let's get on to your failures. So your first failure is the first show you ever made for Bravo. The first show that I produced for Bravo. my first time I became in charge of programming. And the idea was there was a show that I mentioned earlier called Battle of the Network Stars that was on in the United States in the 70s and early 80s. And it was once a year and they would take the biggest stars from each network and that would have them compete in kind of very stupid, you know, a relay race or swimming or tug of war.

11:14This was before Entertainment Tonight. This is before entertainment media. So you never would see Farrah Fawcett or any of these big stars outside of the shows that they were on, unless Barbara Walters was interviewing them. So it was really cool for me who loved stars and celebrity and all this. So the idea was Battle of the Network Reality Stars. And this was now 30 years later. We did it as kind of a kitschy wink to the 70s. And they were wearing similar clothes that they wore. And the idea was that the big stars on TV in those days were reality stars. We took big stars from all the networks, from Survivor, American Idol, Amazing Race, Project Runway on Bravo, all these shows.

11:57We had them compete against each other. Bravo spent a ton of money on marketing. And it was really a bomb. This show really bombed. And I kept saying to my boss, Frances Barrick, who is still my boss at Bravo, she didn't get it. I was like, trust me, this is going to be a huge hit. Now, it was a big bomb. We do a lot of research at Bravo, and we studied why it was a bomb. And what we found out is it was just really off-brand for Bravo. And had it aired on VH1 or E at the time, it would have been a big hit. It was just wrong for Bravo. So that was a really big lesson in programming for your audience and figuring out what your brand is.

12:37And we then drilled down for the next few years and figured out exactly what our brand was and how we were programming into our brand. And we did it very successfully. And without that drill, I'm not sure any of the rest of this would have come. But first of all, no failure is a failure because you learn from your failures. That was, I think, the first time I really ever thought to study a failure. And I was so interested because I had been so sure of it. And I've had more television failures. And it's always, usually as a producer, you know what's wrong with the show. It feels good a lot of times to have the research tell you exactly what you already knew.

13:17And you're like, okay, well, my brain is correct. And so I'm good. How were they competing, these stars from disparaging? They were competing in stupid challenges, like, you know, tug of war and, you know, like if you would have a field day and you would go do sports at the field day. Yes. And so what did the research show about what the Bravo audience specifically wanted? How would you describe the Bravo audience? Well, it said this was not on brand. This seemed like an E show or a VH1 show. It didn't feel like a Bravo show. Bravo at that time had Project Runway, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.

13:56So it didn't feel like a Bravo show. They were right. And this is before The Real Housewives of OC. Okay. So will you tell us the origin story of The Real Housewives of OC? So in my past life as a print journalist, I interviewed Scott Dunlop. Yes. Who filmed this documentary as he thought it was, this fly on the wall series about a set of housewives. I mean, it was kind of a mockumentary, the way that he shot it. There was narration. It was a little funny. Scott Dunlop was an ad exec in Orange County. He lived in Cotto da Casa, down the street from Vicki Gunvalson, Gina Keough. And he knew Slade Smiley.

14:35And he put them all on tape. And it was a weird tape. But we were really interested. And these women, I mean, Vicky was an insurance agent who had a grotto in her backyard. And, you know, this woman, Lori, who worked for her, they would get in their bikinis at lunchtime. They were very endowed in the chest and very blonde. They were moms. It was just a different kind of mom we had ever seen. It was a different kind of insurance agent. It was a different way of life. It was sexy. And it was shocking. and it was aspirational. So I thought, well, if we're going to produce this show about these women, this should be like a soap opera because we would touch down on their personal lives and see them at home being moms and wives and whatever.

15:28And then we would see them together. And it was very much at the beginning, a fly on the wall. We didn't have that much the first season. We thought about killing the show. But, you know, there were little pieces of intrigue. Kimberly had a little cancer scare. Vicky was an overbearing mom. Lori was dealing with a son with addiction issues. So they all, beneath the surface, they all had some things happening in their lives that were dramatic and interesting and relatable. Yeah, and it was all, we've set up these confessionals, so it was interesting. That was an avenue where we could hear them, what they thought of each other.

16:15And that was new. So that was how it started. It's so interesting, the confessional. I've always wondered how long after the actual event that they're talking about are those confessionals filmed? Some are right after. We start shooting confessionals while they're in production. And I have to get the exact number, but I think on average the women sit for maybe six sessions of confessionals. Sometimes they match their clothes and hair, so you don't know that it's a later date that they're being interviewed. We try to shoot them as close as possible to the time because they remember more from what they were feeling and thinking.

16:57A lot of times, six months later, they have no recollection. I mean, a lot of times, it's a meal where they had two martinis, and they're like, I don't remember. I mean, we're still shooting confessionals for Salt Lake City, and the season's airing right now. What qualities do you think make for an iconic reality TV star? I can only speak to the stars on Bravo and they are outspoken slash opinionated, aspirational and funny. Yeah. You couldn't have a conflict avoidant reality. No, that wouldn't work. No, I mean, there are some people who are conflict avoidant and that's interesting too, because eventually they're going to have to deal with it, you know?

17:36Yeah, it's taught me a lot, Housewives, about being able to trust that a friend that is worth having will be able to withstand you saying how you feel to them. I agree. I'm really not scared of confrontation anymore. I mean, I don't love it, but one of my mentors at Bravo was very direct, almost painfully direct. But it really taught me to buck up and get it together and understand the metric for success. Even though I sometimes was emotional about what was being said to me privately, there's a generation of people that don't care for it. But I think it's really the qualities of a great leader, decisiveness, directness, and clarity.

18:29Does that help you when it comes to filming the reunion shows as well? Yeah, I'm able to boil things down in my head. I'm able to listen to someone and I think in my mind say, listen, they did just apologize to you in that huge word salad. Yes. They did say X, Y, or Z. I think listening is the most important skill a broadcaster can have or an interviewer. And so I try to see things that can move the conversation forward based on what's being said. And then also, I really do know now when to cut and run. Like, sometimes I'm like, I'm not even trying. Has managing reality TV stars in this way helped you parent more effectively?

19:17I think so. I think that the kids have made me more patient with the women and the women have made me more patient with the kids. I think both. Yeah. Before we move on from this failure, I want to talk about Watch What Happens Live. Okay. It's just celebrated 15 years. Yes. You are the only gay late night TV host. Yes. How about that the gay guy is the one that doesn't have the Botox? Right. Wait a minute. There's something awry here. Right. But I wonder if I could ask you about how you think your sexuality has played into what you do. What superpower does it give you in this format? If I was straight and I was asking a lot of the women some of the conversations that we're having about body parts and things like that, I think that I'm able to be a little more anatomical about it because I've not slept with a woman.

20:12I don't plan on sleeping with a woman. I think we have a safe space where we can kind of come together and have honest conversations. And so I think that's one thing. And I think the women have felt it with me. I think that there's something safe about me. I mean, look, I love camp. I love fun. I love dark humor. I love pushing the envelope. You know, I think I get away with talking about certain topics because I am gay that Jimmy Fallon wouldn't ever. And also, he's the host of The Tonight Show. He's the host of a mass show. This is supposed to be a fun find. watch what happens live. And the club of people watching it, it's like, oh, wow, oh, you watch that show too?

21:02That's kind of what it's supposed to be, or that's kind of what it is. And so I think there's, I have an ability to ask Reba McIntyre if she's ever tried poppers. And she's like, what? She was on with Troye Sivan. And she's like, what are poppers? Troye's like, I'll explain it to you later. It's just funny. It's just a dialogue that wouldn't happen on another show. Yeah. Yeah. You have had some extraordinary guests on Watch What Happens Live. You've had some of your heroes. You've had Cher, you've had Mariah Carey, you've had Oprah. You haven't yet had Madonna. No. Hopefully at some point before we wrap it up, she will do it.

21:39She called me a troublemaking queen. The problem is that a lot of people have slagged Madonna off on my show. And because of that, it gets picked up. Patti LuPone said something bad about her, and it was picked up worldwide. And so I think she sees me sitting there with the guest, and I'm guilty by association. So I wound up after she called me a troublemaking queen. We do have each other's numbers. And I texted her and I said, you know, I love you so much. And she said, you have a funny way of showing it. And I called my booker, and I basically had overnight, I had my team put together a comp reel of like five minutes of me kissing Madonna's ass on my show, just saying positive things.

22:27And I sent it to her, and I said, this is the stuff that doesn't get reported on. And I think it landed very positive. She was like, oh my God, that's so nice. Let's keep the positivity going, whatever. So who knows? Maybe she'll do it. If she doesn't, it's fine because she's Madonna, so she can do whatever the hell she wants. She's been to a party in your apartment. She has. Yeah. Listen, I'll take what I can get. I don't care. I think there's something very beautiful about that, about her showing her vulnerability that she does actually care. Yeah. What people say about her. You wouldn't expect Madonna.

22:56You wouldn't. Yeah. Now, the other thing that I know from reading your books and that concerns me is that you don't get enough sleep. I know. Yes, I don't. I got eight hours last night, though, in London. Oh, great. Maybe the key is jet lag. That's true. And not having my children here. Okay. I mean, when my kids aren't around, my son wakes me up at ungodly hours still. He's five and a half. And so it will happen. It will happen. But even before you had children. Oh, well, I mean, I got no sleep for a different reason. Yeah. Yeah. I was just burning the candle at both ends like a psycho. Do you find it difficult to calm down after live TV?

23:32No. I now, as a dad, I don't drink that much when we're live anymore. So my studio is so close. We're often live at 10 o 'clock. Do the show from 10 to 10.30. Do an after show for six minutes. I am in the car. I am in bed, makeup off by 10.48. Lights off at 11 to bed. Okay. You used to love having a two-hour massage after. I know. I did get a massage the night before I left for London. I love that it's two hours. It's so chic. My guy really goes deep and he's amazing. Final thing that I want to ask you on this failure is, again, about being gay, that you have had people come up to you saying, Yes.

24:19I watch you with my son and it led to us having a conversation about his sexual identity that we'd never have had before. How much does that mean to you? Huge. Everything. It means absolutely everything to me. I mean, at this point, it also... Someone came up to me yesterday in Marlebone and said... Thank you. Correctly done. Oh, good. Okay, I was waiting after I said it. How do you say the Scottish capital? Glasgow? No, a different one. The other one, Edinburgh. Oh, Edinburgh. No, Edinburgh. Edinburgh. Edinburgh, yeah. Anyway, sorry. Okay, I was close, I think. but someone came up to me and she was like I've grown up on the housewives and I was like how old are you and she said I think she was 28 so then I did the math and I was like oh okay she really has so it makes me feel a little old but it makes me feel very good and it was John Mayer who said that that that I'm gay best friend to a lot of people and when he said that I almost started crying, it meant so much to me.

25:28It was very impactful. And especially since when I was growing up, there were just not a lot of gay people on TV. It was just not, was nothing to aspire to, trust me. You mentioned John Mayer. He is a very good friend of yours, as is Anderson Cooper, as is Sarah Jessica Parker. You are renowned for being a friend, not only on screen to so many of us who haven't met you, but in real life. And in one of your books, I think it was the Andy Cohen diaries, you wrote, I use my friends and job to replace a relationship. Um, wow, you're on it. Well, I think the thing about it is that the people that I have met and fallen in love with, and I've been in love two and a half times, I'm going to say, they were people who I very quickly into meeting them was like, ooh, this person is a special person, I want to talk to this person more.

26:26I also was physically attracted to that. It was like, you know, so I've known when I've met people, perfect storm, you know. And so I do, I kind of am waiting for that person now to drop on my lap or into my view. And I know that I'm open enough to it. But I think the standard by which I judge people, because I do, I go on dates and I'm sitting there and I'm thinking, I'd rather be at dinner with my friend Jackie, who I've known, who I just spoke to, who's my son's godmother, who I grew up with, who I'm still very close with. I just had tea with a friend that I grew up with in St. Louis from, we were born three days apart from each other, who happens to be here in town.

27:11So my friends are all really old friends. And even the group of famous people you mentioned, I've known Anderson 30 years. I've known Sarah Jessica of 25 years. I've known mayor 15 years. So these are people that have really been in my life for a long time. And I think that when I say that I'm replacing my relationships with them, I think also then I may have been replacing like a family with them. I mean, you know, your friends or your family, whatever. But now that I have kids, I feel so much more grounded in my life and my future. I used to wake up in the middle of the night kind of paranoid about where things were heading because I thought being a talk show host and fame and whatever it is, I just, I was cognizant enough to know that this wasn't enough to go all in on because that's going to go away and then what

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