Anderson Cooper

Anderson Cooper is an award-winning journalist and CNN anchor best known for hosting Anderson Cooper 360 and reporting from major breaking-news events around the world. The TV personality is the son of writer Wyatt Cooper and heiress, designer and author Gloria Vanderbilt. He attended Manhattan’s Dalton School before graduating from Yale University in 1989 with a bachelor’s degree in political science. He also studied Vietnamese at the University of Hanoi.

Cooper began his journalism career at Channel One News, where he worked as a fact checker before becoming an international correspondent. He joined ABC News in 1995, where he later coanchored World News Now and hosted the reality series The Mole. Cooper joined CNN in 2001 and launched Anderson Cooper 360 in 2003. His reporting from Hurricane Katrina and the 2010 Haiti earthquake helped establish him as one of the network’s best-known anchors.

Cooper has won 23 Emmy Awards along with a Peabody and Edward R. Murrow award for his journalism. He also spent nearly two decades as a correspondent for 60 Minutes. His other notable projects include the primetime series The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper and the podcast “All There Is with Anderson Cooper.” He is also the author of four books, including Dispatches from the Edge (2006) and Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty (2021).

Cooper was in a relationship with Benjamin Maisani for several years before they split in 2018. The former couple later became coparents to Cooper’s two sons, Wyatt (born in 2020) and Sebastian (born in 2022).