Media Mogul, Andy Cohen

Published Jul 31, 2023, 7:01 AM

Isaac Mizrahi chats with Andy Cohen about his vulnerable side, which housewife his children are most like, his least favorite guest on “Watch What Happens Live” and more.

Follow Hello Isaac on @helloisaacpodcast on Instagram and TikTok, Isaac @imisaacmizrahi on Instagram and TikTok and Andy Cohen on Instagram @bravoandy.

(Recorded on June 27, 2023)

Listen. I think if I could have ticked a box when I was ten or thirteen, or fifteen or eighteen and chosen what do you prefer? Do you want to be hetero or homo? I would have definitely josen hetero, like without question.

Really, Wow, this is Hello Isaac, my podcast about the idea of success and how failure affects it. I'm Isaac Msrahi and in this episode I talked to my friend, the on screen star and the off screen TV legend, Andy Cohen. Hello, Isaac, It's Andy, Andy Cohen.

I can't wait to talk to you, Isaac cannot wait.

I met Andy Cohen about one hundred years ago. We worked on a show I would say this is like eighteen years ago or something. It was called The Fashion Show. It was a reality fashion competition show for Bravo. I was the host and one of the judges, and it was a very intense thing and I got to know the man. And one thing I will tell you about Andy is that he is a real mench like Andy always does the right thing, Okay, as far as I'm concerned. First of all, like everyone else in the world, I had a little crush on Andy because Andy's so, so, so attractive, and it always brought this kind of like vulnerability out in me with Andy, Like I'm a little bit, you know, putty in his hands whenever I'm around him. And I feel like there is a vulnerable side to Andy because I've seen it. I mean, he's a father, and he's a really good son as per his mom and dad, And this is the side that I would like to kind of try to get.

At in this interview. So let's start, shall we. Hey, Andy, Isaac, Hello Isaac Athleisure today. I don't think I've ever seen you dressed like this. Oh my god, I live in hoodies. I have so many hoodies.

Well, it looks really cute on you. Actually, you look particularly cute. You look cuter and cuter Andy. I don't know how the fuck that happens. It's really annoying because you've always been very very handsome.

Thank you, You're very kind.

Is that part of your modus operandi? Like do you know you're handsome? Do you work it a little bit?

Just a little I don't consider well, I mean I don't consider myself ugly, but like I don't consider myself like one of the beautiful people so to speak, you know what I mean, Like, I think I'm fine, and then every so often I get in really good shape and I'm like, Okay, I'm maximizing my potential right now. You don't think of yourself as a sex symbol. No, are you kidding me, Darling? You were a sex symbol. No, I'm not.

Weren't you on like People's list of like sexiest bachelor's or something?

Or gay? Weren't you or something? Or I was like, yeah, it was like a sexy gray haired guy. Yeah, I mean you know those lists. You know, let's say Auto. As the years have gone on, people magazine has to be all inclusive of like all different. They have to put like, you know, uglier people on the list now because it's PC, you know what I mean, Come on, they do, Darling.

I was recently scrolling on Instagram and there was this picture of you as a young man sitting on a building or something, you know, that iconic.

Picture of you. Yes, and then you tout the picture again in the same position. Yes, Well I think I look better now.

You're extremely hunky with long curly hair. By the way, here's a question asking for a friend. Are you a top or a bottom, I'm a top, you're a top. Well that was really an easy answer for you.

Well, because the answer was readily available. I need to loosen up as they say.

Yeah, yeah, I think we're taking lessons from the younger generation and they're all fluid or non binary or something like that. Do you have to think about that? Because we're like old Jews they die was cast way before we were born. We were kind of built into the world to something. But what if you weren't. What if you were able to be whatever the hell you wanted to be?

Would you be more fluid? Would you be heterosexual? Yes, oh for sure. I think I would be more of a bottom. But would I be heterosexual? Well, listen, I think if I could have ticked a box when I was ten or thirteen, or fifteen or eighteen and chosen do you want to be hetero or homo? I would have definitely chosen hetero, like without question, really yes, because it would have been so much easier. All right, So darling, I have my first question today. Is you already asked my first first question, which is I mean, which was a really quest.

Of hey, damn, I know exactly I'm trying to make you squirm like your gen Shaw just out of jail or something. Seriously, No, what's the most difficult part of your job on a day to day basis?

Wow? I think the most difficult part of my job is in terms of the Housewives, just getting it right, you know, keeping it going and getting it right and not messing it up. What does that mean? Listen? You know we're launching a new realize size of New York. The possibility for failure is so high. But we did get it right, thank god. But there are a million ways to get a show wrong, casting, editing, storytelling. Right now, the hardest thing is keeping everything going. We've got ten Housewives shows going. It's amazing. We've got watch what I've beens live. And I think also just for me, I am very outspoken, I'm very out there. I'm very open about who I am, and I think for me in this world where everybody's looking for a reason to take you down basically, so I just think there's an overlay of that in everything I do in my.

Mind right in a world of trolls in other words, yeah, I mean there's a lot of trolls out there, Darling. Speaking of you as an out there person a political person, right. I follow you on all forms of social media, and you do come out and say stuff about stuff. And I think if this was twenty years ago and I had a lot of Republican friends, I had a lot of different friends, people who carried guns, you know, like stuff I didn't agree with. But I thought, you know, it's a big world. It's become very very you know, divided. How do you deal with that? How do you deal with some of those people, people on that network.

Well, I don't really think about it. You know. Listen, I don't have any friends that support Donald Trump, but certainly I have a lot of people that are on Bravo who I would assume support him. And that's fine. Yeah, right, I think it makes sense. It totally tracks, you know what. Can I say? It's their prerogative, you know, And I don't think about it much, to tell you the truth.

I'm sure I have a lot of people who buy my clothes who are Trumps or whatever. And the way I see it is, you know, they look way better in my clothes, so it's good that they're buying them, you know.

Right, Well, you were saying the same thing. If they like my shows, then good, you know.

Yeah, and you could give more money to plan Parent eventually. Right, It's like all those dollars go to plan Parent.

Listen, I hosted a Miss Universe pageant Donald Trump years ago, and I gave all the money to Barack Obama's campaign because it was right when he was starting to call him a birther. So they're right.

So now, you, darling, you are not just a producer. You are a sex symbol, but you're like an on camera star as well.

Right, what part of your job do you like better? I like being on camera. I think one goes with the other. I produce myself on Watch What Happens, Live a Great Deal or on the radio. I have an understanding of when to move to the next topic. And you know, I'm a self starter. I've been a producer for thirty four years, so I have a sense of what I'm doing, I think, and I'm very decisive. But no, I love being on camera. I think it's really fun and I love pushing things and seeing how far I can go and how much I can say and get away with, and so I love it. I think it's so fun. Who's your favorite guest besides me? To have on the show. You are definitely one of them. I mean, I think Oprah was my favorite guest, just because I really truly was a major fan and scholar of the Oprah Winfrey Show, and when she finally did my show, it meant a lot to me. It was a big deal to me that she did it.

And who was like your most difficult guest, Like, was there one moment where you just met like God, I hate this person or I hate this job or something.

Deborah Winger did not love the experience of being on my show. Oh wow, And so that was kind of a push pull what happened. I didn't see that, you know. She just was like we were playing Plee the fifth and I was like, rank these on screen kisses Redford, gear and Chris Christopherson or something like that, and she was like, I don't remember it. Would you remember someone you can thirty years ago? I go, if it was Robert Redford, I would, yeah, like it was yesterday. So she just didn't like my stupid questions. You know, sometimes there are guests who just turn on me. And Titus Burgess was not a fan. He had been on my show several times. And then I said something on the show he was in a movie with Eddie Murphy, and I commented about how homophobic Eddie Murphy had been all those years, saying fag and all of his stand up acts. Right, he really got upset with me and he just left right after the show and then kind of mounting off. What a messy queen I am. And so he had a bad time. But I also think on the show no afterwards on his Instagram then he talked about it. But I find those shows interesting when you can tell the guest hates the host. I mean, even if it may not be pleasurable as opposed to do the interview, My feeling is, well, what an interesting show that was. I mean, he hated me, you know what I mean.

It's almost like you want to book people when they hate you the more th that's right, right, right, right, It's true. But you're some charming You can get away a lot of times with putting people on the spot. And I got to tell you something like, even when I do the show and you go like, what do you think of this dress?

And I feel stupid because I.

Can't go, well, I really hate it or I hate that person because I'm not going to do that on your show.

Probably, Well, yes you can. Well, I know, but I don't know. I'm too polite, you know, I'm too polite. I think you can do it. I think there's a license to do it with the Housewives. I think usually I'm asking you about Housewives fashion. I mean, yeah, I'm not going to ask you to critique Sarah Michelle Geller as a person. I mean, the Housewives put themselves out there. They kind of expect to be judge in a way, you know.

Right, Like, I think that needs to be the tag on all the shows. Like somebody needs to say that about the shows because like it would probably go over better with people who think that it's not the most fantastic portrayal of women, except they are doing that. It's like they are putting themselves out there. Yeah, and it becomes almost like, you know, a saga about a particular town and women. What do you say to people who say that it's produced, You know, when you do a documentary about a snake and you kick the snakes of the rent does something annoying.

What I would say is that there is a level of production and nuance about it. When the women get together, they're expected to talk about the last time they were all together and how they felt about it. They are encouraged to speak their feelings. If a housewife is saying to you know, the producer, I think X, Y or Z is so fake and you know this, that and the other, the producer is going to call them out at some point and say, you know you're acting two face, you know so. But I think one of the reasons the Housewives are still going and that Bravo has been so successful is that it's not a fake show like The Hills was kind of a semi scripted show. And first of all, I think these women are bad actresses. Mainly they're not actresses. And second of all, I think that the reason that they're successful is that we cast very dramatic, outspoken people. So they're really being themselves. As you know, you've met so many housewives, they're kind of exactly yes as they appear, you know right.

Well, actually, to be perfectly honest with you, what's funny in person, they come across as much more smart and refined than they do in the show.

A lot of times, you know, like.

That's the one thing about like half the fashion that you show me. It's like, what are you doing to yourself? You know, I made that comment once on your show. It's like, it's fine if you emulate Charro, but eventually you will become Charro, you know, which is a great aspiration, Darling. That is a consummation, devoutly to be wished, you know, Like I would.

Like to do that.

But you know, after every single person looks like Charro, Like where do you go from there?

You know?

And so when you ask me about clothes, it's like, well, you know, let me count the sequence of something.

You know.

But Darling, in the true spirit of pushing people, you know, once I interviewed Dolly Parton right yes on my TV show a long time ago, and she did this thing where she played her nails right and I thought, Darling, I have just gotten the most fantastic exclusive gem there is to get from Dolly Charta it everywhere. I found out that she does that fucking thing on every damn show. Right So, I'm gonna push you now the way you sometimes like to push your guests. What is something that we don't know that you are vulnerable about?

Gosh, okay, that's a good question. I think I'm vulnerable about people's preconceived notions of me as someone who kind of you know, is a misogynist or you know. I think I get very sensitive when I see kind of judgments about myself on Twitter that aren't true, where people are like, oh, he's not really raising his kids. He just has a bunch of nannies and he's not really doing it, or you know, there's like a narrative that I like some particular drug that I don't, and I'm so outspoken about what I do like, and I'm so transparent about being a top and loving to have sex and you know, so anythings, and so for me when there are lies out there about myself that makes my hair stand up because I'm like, here, I am, I overshare everything, and now you're believing this horrible thing about me. Like that kind of upsets me. In terms of vulnerability, I think there's a lot of parenting stuff that I'm vulnerable about, you know, feeling like I'm not good enough. Wow.

Really, well, first of all, Darling, before we talk about that, you got to know that you are like kind of my social media role model who because I get some people who say some horrible things too, you know, and then I think, what would Andy do, Andy would just go yeah, whatever you know, and you have to sort of plow through it. I know this sounds crazy, but even though we think of younger, younger, younger people as being the forerunners of TikTok as something, but I think of you as like someone whose show was so interactive from such a long time ago, and so kind of social media friendly and so social media motivated. It shocks me to think that if you see a collection of bad things that people say about you on social media, get you get let.

It get to you. It takes a lot to let it get to me. But there are times where I'm feeling a certain way and I'll read something and I'll be like, oh man, that bummed me out. Every so often something penetrates you.

Know right right, like you know, just the worst four words in the world, and they post it. But I have to tell you that, being a little bit older now, like I don't care anymore. I swear to you, like I kind of like it. I turned this crazy corner where I like the shitty things that people say.

I like it. I mean, you can't please.

Everybody, right, It's more important to say what you're going to say, and then people can say what they're going to say before we talk about your kids, because I know that, like, you had a really happy childhood, I.

Had a great childhood. It was in Saint Louis. It was very kind of suburban and calm and safe and yes.

And so when you think about your kids, are you feeling like you're not good enough because you're raising them in New York City or is it something else? Oh?

No, I think all parents feel it, probably, But the weight of being a single parent is very intense. There can be helpers, there can be friends, but you're their primary person and it's just a heavy responsibility and I wouldn't trade it. I'm glad I did it. I knew it when I did it, But there's just a lot to learn and it's a tremendous amount of energy. I have so many jobs, but this one is the one that it's like whoa, you know. Last night I got home at from dinner around like nine thirty, and I put the music on, which is what I do every every moment I stepped through my door, I put music on, always have music on, and very rarely watched TV. Actually, and I had left the speaker on in his room, which I never do. I never even turned the speaker on in his room. But we were playing together earlier and I had put the music on and I woke him up, and he got so mad at me, and it triggered him being awake for like two hours, and it just tore pido night. And you know, it's that thing where you make one stupid mistake and then you're kicking yourself all night. Can't you give him a sleeping pill? You really can't give him a sleeping pill? Can have the question?

Okay, see, luckily I am not a father. Why, darling, why was it important for you to have kids?

You know, I was at a place in my life. I was heading towards fifty years old, and I had written these two diary books, and I have a third one out now called The Daddy Diaries The Year I grew up, and I had written these two books. And when you print to diaries of your life, you really see what you did every day. And I really was thinking, kind of, is that all there is? I mean, this is so fun. I love my jobs, but I'm single. I was like, I need to ground myself. Are you, darling, Let's just confirm that you're actually single? Is there no one? Well there, listen there, like is it like a secret person somewhere?

Like no, I don't know, like Mike Bloomberg's I don't know who are you sleeping?

No? No, no, no, you know, really I don't know.

I swear to God, I you know, and again asking for a friend. I just want to know if this is true? Are you really single? Because there are rumors, Darling, there are rumors there are.

You know, site and I have a secret that Ryan Seacrest is my secret lover exactly or somebody yes, or somebody somebody no, Sarah Jessica Parker is secretly like your lover or Kelly or something.

I don't know. It's true. They're all completely single, correct, right? All right?

And so like does the way you grew up enter into the way you raise your kids? Like are you more the sort of fabulous cosmopolitan anti maame kind of daddy or are you more like you know, this kind of midwestern guy who puts the tibet on time, et cetera?

Like who are you more like? Would you say, as a parent? I think somewhere in between. Listen, they're city kids. They're going to be out they're going to see a lot of theater, and they're going to be out in the world, and they're probably have already seen more than most you know, kids their age would ever see. You know, I would say, I'm an urban dad. What was that show Family Affair. I'm like, Brian Keith, I need a mister French.

You know.

Wow.

I was going to say, well that I'm like mister French in that case, if you're right Keith, and I'm mister French because mister French was like a bottom completely right, like he.

Was such a bottom.

But but you know, like watching the Uswives show, I always wonder this about like how you particularly see that we see them as parents, and often they are really questionable the way they raise their kids.

I don't know that that's true.

Actually, okay, tell me defend it, then say what you think.

I actually think that they are not only great moms, but that the voices of reason since season one in Orange County have been the kids. I mean, you had Ramona's daughter Avery, you had Vicki's daughter Brianna, and I remember Avery, I think in season one saying like you can't wear that out of the house, you know, to her mom and Avery was like twelve at the time. Remember that, I remember. I think they're very good moms, I really do.

Do you think that it's okay that they make the decision for their kids to be on a reality TV show in the public eye at the sage when they can't.

That's a good question. Yeah. I don't know. I'm grateful for it, and I think that my assessment of that is that the kids that are on The Housewives predominantly leave the show as they came into it. In other words, if there are fuck ups that then wind up getting on the show, they're going to be fuck ups when they leave. And if some of these kids enter the show when they're ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fifteen, eighteen years old and they seem pretty well adjusted, then they remain so. So I think for the ones that are kind of messed up, it's probably not the most healthy thing for them. But in general, I think the kids have been fully cooked as who they are from when they got on and then they stay that way.

I mean, I would say, Darling from that just point of watching the show, it is just a little bit disturbing to see kids on the show, and that's what I was talking about originally, right, But I will say this about the whole genre, not just of housewives, but of reality TV. I think like, in a way, you know, life is imitating art, Like it was a little disturbing, and now you just want everyone to be on reality TV because it seems like a cathartic, good experience. And then the other thing I wanted to ask you was would you do a reality series with your kids?

No, I would definitely not, And I'm already really navigating how much I want my kids on my social media. I pretty much stopped showing Ben. I still show Lucy, and you hear Ben's voice, but you don't really see him. And because they didn't choose, you know, to be famous. Yeah, and you know, people say hi to them on the street and it's sweet. I don't think they understand why people are saying hello to them. They just think it's whatever, right, all right?

I would like you to take me through a little timeline of your career, because we met a lot a long time ago, and you worked your way up as an executive.

Right. You started as a journalist. I was at CBS News for ten years from ninety to two thousand. Then I left and was working for Barry Diller, who was launching an arts channel, basically arts cable channel, pop culture and Arts. That was really kind of like wanting to do the shows that maybe Channel four in the UK was doing, which were really kind of opinionated, noisy documentaries and shows about art and the arts in all of its iterations. And that was a great job. And through that time I learned everything about kind of cable promotion and marketing and budgets and production, and we produced some documentaries that got great acclaim. Won a Peabody Award for a documentary called The N Word that I was an executive producer of. And you know, towards the end of that time, Barry's company he sold off part of it to Universal and then Universal merged with NBC and then Bravo was part of that package and they brought me over there to run current programming. And that was just after Project Runway had wrapped filming the first chunk of season one but hadn't been edited, and it was it was an exciting time. Queer Eye had just launched, and then we came up with Top.

Chef Right and so Darling we talk about how successful people are and you are the like the definition if you look in the dictionary, it's like success colon Andy Cohen, Right, was there ever a top and that you failed miserably? And if so, did it help you? Did it put you back on a track or to teach you something?

Yeah? I think that those four years working for Barry Dillar, there were some low moments there. By the way, the channel didn't even get on the air for a couple years after, so I was working on something that didn't really exist to anyone for a few years. So I had come off of working at CBS News for ten years. Then I was working on basically this idea for a few years, and it didn't feel like I was a part of anything successful. And by the way, the channel wound up getting kind of the plug pulled on it. But it was such a massive learning experience and it totally set me up for everything that I went on to do at Bravo. So it was like Barry Dillar boot camp, or you know, it was like me getting my masters in cable television. In a weird way. I was so emotionally fulfilled at CBS News and even when I was like a desk assistant. When I started. You say, oh, you seem successful, and what's funny is I would argue that for thirty of my thirty four years career, I thought that I was successful. I thought I was successful when I was a desk assistant at CBS News only because I thought, Wow, I get to be a desk assistant at CBS News. I thought it was the coolest thing on the planet to do that and be in the building and see Dan Rather in the hallway and work on the same floor as Andy Rooney and whatever it was that I was doing, I thought it was amazing. So I always viewed myself as a success. Yes, I've had shows that have really bombed that I have gone to the mat for. I have had things that have not succeeded. For sure, many bomb shows. Yeah, I didn't think much What Happens Live was going to be a success. I mean, they picked it up for twelve weeks at midnight. I think the first order was for once a week, and I thought, well, this is not going to go anywhere. So I was stunned when it was getting ratings. I mean it was really exciting, you know. I was the guy that got the ratings in the morning. So I was like, well, this is not going to work. And then it started getting ratings and I said, I think this is doing good.

Was that part of a bigger plan when you were a desk assistant or whatever it was and you were so happy, did you have a plan to become a media giant.

I wanted to be on camera very badly, but I was told by a friend who is still a friend who's still at CBS News that my eyes were horribly crossed and I would never work in front of the camera.

I do have a wandering eye, but like, yes, I know, I think it's kind of sexy, thank you. So he thought it was going to prohibit me from ever being, you know, in front of the camera.

So I had pretty much given that up.

To be honest, darling, are you neurotic? Like do you suffer? Do you wake up in the middle of the night like freaking out?

Occasionally? I'd wake up with a lot of worries sometimes, but I don't consider myself neurotic. I'm a very decisive person. I make decisions very quickly and with great confidence, and then I move on to the next thing, and I think that that is a great strength. It helps me to keep everything moving and the trains running on time.

So like, somehow you missed the gene, the kind of East Coast Jewish kind of angst and you know, imposter syndrome. You don't suffer from imposter syndrome.

I did very much. When I started on watch What Happens Live. It was the most self conscious period of my life until I was like the only single dad and the only gay dad at my son's school and just walking in there like hey, but no. Those early years of Watchingsons Live, I remember first of all feeling like, well, who do you think you are? You're not a comedian, You're not you know who do you think you are? But then on the other hand, I remember that first episode of Watching Happens Live and we were live. I remember going into the bathroom and looking at myself in the mirror, and I was not nervous at all because I felt like it was kind of what I was meant to be doing. But what I didn't expect was this weird feeling of I guess it's called insecurity, haha. That's not something that I was really used to. And not only that, I just felt like because I wasn't a comedian, and because watching Happens Live was not your typical late night show, I just never felt like I was a part of that club. I just felt like this imposter. Yeah, I really did. And I remember talking to Jimmy Fallon about it. I remember talking to Anderson about it. I was competitive with people who, in my mind, I was like, wait, we did that on our show, and now they're doing it. I was really looking around and looking over my shoulder and you know, and then it's like, I am so grateful that I got over that. And I think what normally happens is that talk show hosts get crazier the longer their show goes. But I would argue that I've just gotten way mellower the longer the show has gone. And there's stuff that I cared about early on that I really don't. The show's been on fourteen years, so I would say the first five years I was really in my head in one way or another, and then I just have had so much gratitude for the nine years since that we're still getting to do it. And then specifically during COVID, that made me so grateful. So I just lead with gratitude and I don't take any of it for granted whatsoever. It is a gift to be on television. I get it.

I'm with you, but and it is all an inner sense, like you get grateful and you get older and wiser, and you see that you're gonna have problems and so you know you're going to get through and it's gonna be okay. Right, But get back to this thing about competition, because I feel like the whole competition thing is what makes it so kind of shitty to do anything like a late night talk show or even to just go on Instagram. You know, when you see someone who's having a big success and you're not having a big success at that moment. That does not feel good, does it?

Does it? I think it depends who the person is. I mean, listen, it's all about your state of mind. That's true. And again, I considered myself successful when I was a desk assistant. Success is a state of mind. Happiness is a state of mind. If you can access your happiness and figure out a reason to be grateful, then hopefully it's not going to bother you. When you go on someone's Instagram and you see, oh my god, that person got ads.

Well, darling, Ah, it is always about someone who's thinner than you, isn't it.

It's true?

But wait a minute, does getting good ratings help you feel incredibly grateful and help you reach this inner piece that you're talking about?

It did, but no, I think that I was thinking about the things that I couldn't control or things that were going on in my head, you know. And by the way, there have been periods of time where my show has gotten horrible ratings, but these shows have been great, and we've generated a lot of press, and we've maybe got the booking that we had never thought we would get or something. You have to figure out ways to measure how things are going, and they're not always the conventional ways. I think, all.

Right, well, the only thing I want to know is why you and Anderson Cooper are not together. That is a question that you probably get asked a lot. First of all, is Anderson involved with someoney.

No, he's raising his kids with his with Benjamin Massani, who was his partner for like ten years or more, maybe more. And I think they just consider each other family and it's a very European, brilliant arrangement that they have going. And it makes sense to the people who know them. And I think that, you know how some couples are thirty years into the relationship. I think if Anderson and I said let's start dating, it would be as though we were starting the relationship thirty years in. I know this guy, I know his moods, he knows mine, and not necessarily in the greatest way. I just think it wouldn't be sexy.

No, but I mean, you know, like you said, twenty years in, though it's not the sexiest thing in the world to be married.

You know, if the two of you got together, you want the first ten years and it's like, hey, remember when we went to Italy. No, it's I mean, you know, I've traveled around the world with you. I have been everywhere in the world with him. Like, if this was gonna happen, it would have happened. By the way, when I first met him, I wanted to date him, you know, and I immediately the first conversation I asked him about Gloria Vanderbilt. I broke his rule. I was like your mom's glory Olanderbilt. I was so green, he was so waspy, and you know, he was like, oh, well, this is not happening, but it's fine that it didn't. I love our relationship. We have the perfect friendship.

Right, well, if you got together, it would be very like sort of gay Brady Bunch, like, you know, the two of you with kids and everything. All right, So now, Darling, you always do these fun games with your guests.

I have ones for you.

It's called All My Children because I know you're a big giant Susan Lucifen and she was your first interview or something, right, all right, this is the Ben and Lucy Edition, All My Children.

Which one is most like you? Ben?

Interesting? Which one is most likely to flip over a table?

Lucy? Well Ben, right now, he's four and he's prone to major tantry. Right, Okay, so maybe it's Ben.

Which one is most likely to write a book about you, entitled Daddy Dearest Ben for waking me up in the middle of the night with those fucking speakers.

Which housewife is Ben mostly like, Oh my god, that's funny. Oh my god, I'm gonna say Dolores, I'm gonna say de larious. I don't know why.

That's so hilarious. And which housewife is Lucy most like?

Lucy is like fourteen months, so we're just figuring out what her personality is.

Oh, so it's Dirinda. So it's Dindam Okay, let's say go on. Yeah, because she likes to make it nice, right, she likes to make it nice.

All right, Well, that was it, So I hope that was fun for you. It was fun. It was fun. The final, final, final question I have for you.

You're one hundred and three years old and you die, right and your A bit appears? What is the headline and what is the oh bit about?

I hope the headline is he brought a lot of fun to a lot of people. That's what I hope the headline is. I think my show's fun. I think the Housewives are fun. Oh and I think New Year's Eve is fun. So I hope that he made things fun. He made things fun, Yes he did.

He is currently making things so much fun, including this book called Daddy Diaries.

Tell Me about that. It is the third installment of my diary series that was based on Andy Warhol's diaries when I first started writing them, and it's the last year of my life. It starts with me absolutely torching Mayor Deblasio on CNN on New Year's Eve. It ends with me being sober on New Year's Eve with Anderson, and through it all, I'm a single dad and Lucy is born and a lot happens and it's a lot of fun and it's very name droppy, but it's also I think, very relatable for a lot of parents.

Well, I have a copy. I can't wait to read it. All Right, Well, Darling, I love you. I love you, I mean it unconditional. Mothers love Darling. Thank you for being here.

I loved it great.

Wow, Wow, could you believe that was such a fun informative chat with Andy. Here's the thing in advance of it, I thought to myself, what Andy is so good at is getting people to admit stuff and say stuff that they wouldn't normally say. You know, he has this charm about him, you know. So one thing I really wanted to do is I wanted to create this safe space for Andy Cohen. I mean, when does Andy Cohen have a safe space?

Right?

I wanted him to say stuff that he wouldn't normally say in a run of the mill interview. And I think I accomplished that. He talked about his kids, you know, in this kind of intimate way. He actually said that he might not want his kids to be on reality TV, which I think is a big admission. And one thing I will note, I think I heard him use the phrase hmm, that's a good question, like more than once in this interview. And boy, if there is ever like a great compliment to be given by somebody, it's from Andy Cohen saying, hm, great question. I didn't want to ask him questions that he's gotten a million times, you know, And I think we did.

Good darlings.

If you enjoyed this episode, do me a favor and tell someone, Tell a friend, tell your mother, tell your cousin, tell everyone you know. Okay, and be sure to rate the show.

I love rating stuff.

Go on and rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts so more people can hear about it. It makes such a gigantic difference and like it takes a second, So go on and do it. And if you want more fun content videos and posts of all kinds, follow the show on Instagram and TikTok at. Hello Isaac podcast And by the way, check me out on Instagram and TikTok at.

I am Isaac Msrahi.

This is Isaac Misrahi, thank you, I love you and I never thought I'd say this, but goodbye Isaac. Hello Isaac is produced by Imagine Audio, Awfully Nice and I AM Entertainment for iHeartMedia. The series is hosted by me Isaac Msrahi. Hello Isaac is produced by Robin Gelfenbein. The senior producers are Jesse Burton and John Assanti. It is executive produced by Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, Carara Welker, and Nathan Klokey at Imagined Audio, production management from Katie Hodges, sound design and mixing by Cedric Wilson. Original music composed by Ben Waltzer. A special thanks to Neil Phelps and Sarah Katanak at I AM Entertainment

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Hello Isaac with Isaac Mizrahi

Isaac Mizrahi is an expert -  at almost everything! He’s an iconic fashion designer, actor, singer,  
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