The Andy Cohen Diaries (47 page)

Went in to 30 Rock and schmoozed around Bravo for a couple hours, doing my thing. The Koons flower sculpture in front is in full bloom and now I love it. Shari and I had a productive
Housewives
catch-up. Sounds like
RHOA
is going great. Viewers aren't thrilled with our
Jersey
reboot. We booked Kim Kardashian for next week and she wants to be perceived as a businesswoman now, so I said WTF are we going to ask during “Plead the Fifth” and our booker Robyn said, “How about ‘What has been your favorite business venture?'” We LOL'd. The live show was Tyra and Derek Hough and I guess Tyra likes to spotlight that she went to Harvard and is a businesswoman. So everyone wants to be known as a businesslady.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 6, 2014

You know what is not my favorite way to spend a day? Recording an audiobook. It is torturous reading back your words, and this is meta that I'm
writing
in my book about
recording
my book, but it is what it is. A minute after I Instagrammed a pic of me recording, I got an email from Nicole Richie saying, “NOTHING is worse than recording an audiobook! I didn't even finish when I was supposed to do mine. I was also twenty-two and on pills, so don't follow my lead.” She's hilarious. The best part of the day was the cheeseburgers the producer, audio guy, and I ordered out from 5 Napkin Burger. Mine tasted like candy. I got home and Skyped with my mom, who made me promise I'm not an alcoholic. Also she kept telling me I had blood on my face, an accusation of which I was highly dismissive. Wacha went after a fly that was buzzing around and ate it out of the air. Impressive! He's a hunter. The day
will
come when he kills a big water bug for me. I know it. Oh, and I found out today that he's nominated for
InStyle
magazine's “Super Stylish Pet” award, but he's losing to Zooey Deschanel's dogs Zelda and Dot. I am upset on his behalf. I want him to win but should I publicly solicit for votes?

Dinner with Bruce, SJP, and Matthew at RedFarm downtown and after our hellos they asked what the red mark on my cheek was. Turns out I have been walking around with
ketchup on my face since 2 p.m
. I have been in contact with about twenty-five people since 2 p.m., and I couldn't figure out that I had ketchup on my face? Bruce was fascinated that I don't look in the mirror to check myself out in the course of the day. I really don't until I go on the air. Maybe I'm not as narcissistic as I think I am. They'd all just seen the Lance Armstrong documentary and filled me in. Sounds like he actually is a more horrible person than I'd ever imagined. Every two or three years the tabloids print that SJ and Matthew are getting divorced, and I guess a whole new round of articles just came out. It's nuts. I wish they would sue but that winds up being a huge time and money suck. I had to leave at nine-fifteen to go change and do the show, which turned out to be spontaneous and fun—Mel B and Mark-Paul Gosselaar were the guests.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 7, 2014

New York City is so weird without Liza in it. She never travels, so she's always here. And I don't watch the weather, I just ask her what it's going to be. So now I have no clue what the forecast is. Fucking honeymoon. Meanwhile I
do
know the forecast where she is: there is a tropical storm
and
hurricane headed for Hawaii!
And
Liza emailed that the New York City Empress of Weather, Janice Huff, just started following her on Instagram. Coincidence? I don't
think
so.… Does Janice Huff rely on Liza for her weather reports too? Is she following Liza for info on the hurricane? Met this morning with Gordon the architect and Eric my designer—we're on our third set of plans and though I'm incredibly excited, all I could think as we went over each room is how broke I am going to be when this is all over. At the gym, I convinced myself that Jeremy Googled the names of those Madonna songs. I took a break and texted him and he said, “I really knew.” I have never been prouder of my nephew. By the way, the kid is a straight-A student and excels at everything he touches but it took him spitting two Madonna song titles at me for me to give him respect. It's too late for
me
to get my priorities in order but I am thrilled he's on the right track.

Bruce and I saw the Imelda musical
Here Lies Love
at the Public, where we ran into Radzi and her friend, the guy who is dating Susan Sarandon. She said he has a new reality show coming on and he said it's not a reality show, it's a “docu-series,” and that's a pretty way of saying “reality show.” It's what I say all the time and it's what Oprah said when she launched OWN. It makes people who are on the shows feel better about being on a reality show. The musical was incredible—super-inventive staging, great score. It's like a moving theater piece where the audience is a part of it (usually I hate that but it worked here). And Imelda was just as horrible a person as you remember—and to think that the Reagans had them airlifted out of the Philippines to live in Hawaii for the rest of their lives! The U.S. had to
help
them?

My show was Daniel Radcliffe and Rebecca Romijn. Daniel Radcliffe's security guy is crazily handsome—in the same league as Lady Gaga's. Bruce and I had a mini going-away night for him, just the two of us, at the Copacabana, which is gay and isn't the original Copacabana, just someplace that uses that same name. The roof is retractable, though, so that's a bonus.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 8, 2014—NYC–SAG HARBOR

Drove out with Bruce. Had to go straight to East Hampton and endure that tragic stretch from Southampton on 27. Hung out with Bruce and Ava in the pool and Ava got even cuter. Went by the Countess LuAnn's new place in Sag Harbor to discuss her role on
RHONY
next season. She asked if I would consider bringing Jill back and then as an aside mentioned that there was no way Bethenny would ever come back. I agreed. Went to the Palm for Jonah's sixteenth-birthday dinner with Troy, Bruce, and Ava. I will never forget first meeting Jonah ten years ago right when Troy brought him back from Africa. Bruce and I taught him how to play baseball in Bruce's lush backyard as a helicopter flew above us and Jonah freaked out wondering what the hell he was seeing in the sky. He has grown into an amazing young man. People who eat at the Palm are my people, but that East Hampton branch is essentially full of barbarians. The noise level is unprecedented—it's people just yelling at the top of their lungs at each other. Rachel Zoe came by the table and gushed over Ava's J.Crew sequined hot pants and top. I heard that Jill Zarin was on the porch but I didn't see her. When I got home I looked up Imelda Marcos in the
Warhol Diaries
and besides commenting about how fat she got, Warhol wrote that after partying with her on Malcolm Forbes's yacht in 1984, “Everybody said that once Imelda gets started partying you can't stop her, that she's always the last to leave, and it was true, she was going strong.” Apparently she had a mic and sang about twelve songs on the boat. I solicited for votes for Wacha on Twitter for the stupid
InStyle
award and now he's beating Zooey Deschanel's dogs. Meanwhile he is perfectly content running around trying to eat flies out of the air, so why am I bothering? Oh, and he has 65k Instagram followers.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 9, 2014—SAG HARBOR

Gorgeous day! No humidity and in the eighties. Mark and Kelly picked Wacha and me up to go to the Perskys' on their boat. It was his first boat ride and he just chased shadows and reflections on the floor the whole time. The Perskys were in full summer gear with incredible meatloaf sandwiches, topped off by Joanna's peppermint ice cream, of which I had two helpings. I couldn't help it. When I got home I had a great nap, then Wacha fell asleep on my shoulder and the cuteness of it was too much to bear. I decided if he didn't wake up I'd have to cancel my plans. He did wake up and Mark and Kelly picked me up again, this time for the Seinfelds' dinner party. (Having the Consueloses down the street makes for an incredibly convenient designated-driver solution on nights when we're invited to the same places.) The Ninj was fighting tonight in Atlantic City and on the way over Mark and I worried about him. The party was outside and beautiful. Nacho Figueras got interrupted midway through telling me his polo-playing schedule for the rest of the year by a call on his phone from Aspen. “It's Aspen,” he said. I want Aspen to call me! (Was it Goldie?) Cameron Diaz told Bruce and me about her new apartment. She is digging Restoration Hardware and I think I need to take a deeper dive into their essentials, like couches. A lot of people at the beach are digging Resto Hardware. Gwyneth Paltrow was there and so was Rachel Zoe. We were seated next to Kourtney Kardashian and Scott Disick, but I didn't believe it was Kourtney. (I am really bad with Kardashians because I don't watch that show.) It was her, though. We talked about NY vs. LA in the summer. Scintillating. They left very early. There was dancing. Bruce spilled rosé all over Kelly. Home by one-fifteen.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 10, 2014—SAG HARBOR–NYC

Unfortunately, the fight did not go the Ninj's way last night. Went by Jimmy's so Wacha and Gary Fallon could run around. Had a forty-five-minute debrief with him and Nancy in the pool while the dogs ran around like maniacs, then Jimmy took his Vespa and followed me over to Marci's, where I had lunch and pool time. The water in the ocean was blissful. I picked up Bruce and we drove back to the city. He fell asleep in the car and so did Wacha, which almost put me to sleep. I was not looking forward to the live show, just not in the headspace, but I'd forgotten how adorable David Arquette is. His energy is flawless. Met Hickey after the show at the Cubbyhole for a quick drink.

MONDAY, AUGUST 11, 2014

Wore my Ninj T-shirt to the gym to support the fallen fighter, but his attitude is so good he didn't need the boost. Recorded that damn audiobook all afternoon and I was quite exasperated about it. Went straight from there to tape Kim Kardashian. Contrary to what I'd surmised, there were no restrictions on the interview. I had killed some Kris Humphries and Ray J questions that were on the “Plead the Fifth” list out of respect, then when she told me she was expecting much worse, I instantly regretted it. Am I getting soft? I took a selfie with her ass. So that was exciting. Also, Caisse had referred to North as a girl in the prompter and during the show I kept changing it to a gender-neutral reference (i.e., “baby”) because I was quite positive that North was a boy. My team couldn't believe I didn't know the sex of this freaking baby. I could've told them I didn't know who Barack Obama was and gotten the same reaction. Right before the show, we learned that Robin Williams had died. Instant sadness. When I was in my first year as a desk assistant at CBS News, Lynn was set to interview him for a piece she was doing about Julliard and decided to let me interview him myself. I was horrible, stepping on everything he was saying, not listening and just sticking to my question list. He was so lovely and took care to make sure my horrible skills didn't sink the whole interview—something he didn't have to do. Anyway, I guess he was tortured and sad. It's all really upsetting. The live show was Terry and Heather Dubrow.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 12, 2014

On Tinder this morning, I swiped right on someone who is … drumroll please … wait for it … age appropriate! Forty-two, to be exact. But now that it's a match I don't know what clever bon mot to throw at him to begin a dialogue. Hmmm. Booked Radzi to dogsit for the day since I am trapped in audiobook hell. We had played a game with Kim Kardashian where she had to guess retail prices of things rich people don't know about and thereby save Kris from peril. The graphic of Kris in peril kind of looked like she was hanging herself. So we had to change it of course because it turns out Robin Williams hung himself. This is the danger of pre-taping a show. Things will happen that make you look totally insensitive. Willie Geist challenged me to the Ice Bucket Challenge. I'm gonna do it on tomorrow's show. And Lauren Bacall died tonight. So sad. I met her a few times at Natasha's house. Now all the big legends are gone.

I had a date with this guy tonight who did not ask me one question. It was fascinating, and exhausting. There were periods of (for me) long silences! Long silences completely freak me out. (Ask my last therapist.) After about an hour I just retreated into my phone because the Kim K.
WWHL
was airing and I wanted to see what people were saying. My Twitter feed was blowing up with people saying “How dare you have her on, she's not famous for anything,” but I am the guy who has Housewives on all the time, so I don't get the big difference. I think it's fascinating that people are drawing a line between the Kardashians and the Housewives.
I like it
that they're drawing a line, but it's confounding to me. And the selfie of me and her ass is like a wildfire on Twitter. People are fascinated by that ass! Got a text from Mom after the show: “Dad likes Kim K. I don't get it but she does have a huge ass.”

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 13, 2014

Surfin is very pumped about my #belfie with Kim Kardashian. Last workout with the Ninj before my summer break. Who knows in what shape I'll be when I return to him in September? Long call with Kenya to talk about next season. Ramona is now apologizing for stonewalling me at the reunion. I finally thought of something to say to the age-appropriate guy, and it was, “Hey there, how's it going?” Had two shows tonight—the first with Demi Lovato and Jessica Alba. Loved Demi; she reminded me of Lisa Marie Presley—strong and vulnerable all at once. Had dinner at Bottino with my old crew from CBS News—Diane, Mary, Mo, Josh Gelman, and Lynn joined us as a surprise. The live show was Kim Zolciak with Bruce bartending. The two of them competed in Bravowood Squares and Bruce completely lost the plot when it was his turn to guess a square—he picked a star—Billy Eichner, not a square that would block Kim's X. It was such a Chrissy Snow moment. I died. Kim even said, “We're playing tic-tac-toe, honey!” He put his hand over his face. It was, as I said on the show, a battle of the brainiacs. I did the Ice Bucket Challenge. Guess what—it was cold. Did it raise money for ALS? I dunno. I gave. We have a ton of huge guests coming in the fall (and are working hard on getting Streisand—OMG) but I have to admit it felt great to end the show and break for three weeks. We had a
WWHL
wrap party at Amy Sacco's club, No. 8. Man, does my team know how to have fun at a party. And they
love
to pose for pics. I think I set the tone on that one. Walked Wacha at 4 a.m. around the Village. There wasn't a hell of a lot going on out there.