History Creator / AndersonCooper

* CampGay: Rarely apparent, but when you get him started on Music/{{Madonna}}, Music/LadyGaga, and trashy reality TV....

* NonIdleRich: Again, his mother is ''Gloria Vanderbilt.'' Not only that, he's even stated that she disinherited him from the family fortune because she and his father wanted to teach him the value of earning his own money.

* The Series/{{Glee}} character Cooper Anderson is named after him.

* BannedInChina

* ManlyTears: He nearly broke down on-camera during Hurricane Katrina at the sight of a young man in a pickup truck carrying a salvaged American flag -- he was visibly fighting back tears and only just able to pull himself back together enough to go on. He notes in his memoir that amid catastrophic governmental incompetence, starvation, wholesale destruction, and the sight of dead bodies in the streets, it was just too much.

* BrainBleach[=/=]TooMuchInformation: Poor guy's reaction was this when his mother told him in the most explicit way possible about her storied love life.

* PlatonicLifePartners: He's close friends with Andy Cohen and were actually set up on a blind date back in the 90's, but that never panned out. Thanks to sharing mutual social circles they're often seen hanging out together and even have sporadic live shows around the country where they just talk and joke around on stage.

%%* SociallyAwkwardHero: Reporting live from the middle of a war zone that could potentially get him killed? Fun times for all. Going to a party with a bunch of people and being expected to ''socialize'' with them? Excuse him while he finds a rock to hide under.

* NonIdleRich: Again, his mother is ''Gloria Vanderbilt.''

* {{Corpsing}}: Reporting on [[InherentlyFunnyWords Dyngus Day]] as well as during several ''Ridiculist'' segments. Who can blame the guy?

* StraightManAndWiseGuy: He ''tries'' to be the StraightMan to Creator/KathyGriffin's ridiculous antics during their New Year's Eve broadcasts, but... it doesn't usually work. She tends to get him laughing about two minutes in, and he doesn't really stop for the rest of the evening.

* VitriolicBestBuds / OddFriendship: Serious Cooper and cheery KathyGriffin. Their New Years' Eve coverage (which mostly foregoes musical guests and coasts primarily on the two of them riffing on each other) is a thing of beauty.

* HeroicBystander / BadassNormal: Lots of journalists are content to merely record the events of wherever they go. Cooper, [[http://londonqueen001.tumblr.com/post/46462992165/harvey-swick-flowers-without-reason no so much.]]

* CrazyPrepared[=/=]ProperlyParanoid: He admitted in an interview that he's so concerned about surviving daily life or events like bio-attacks that he actually keeps a [[http://www.dinnerpartydownload.org/episodes/344/ biohazard suit in his]] office at CNN.

He returned to serious journalism in the wake of September 11, this time at Creator/{{CNN}}. After a stint with Paula Zahn on ''American Morning'' and another as the channel's weekend anchor, he was given the prime-time slot of 8pm weekdays, for a broadcast entitled ''Anderson Cooper 360°'' that runs either one or two hours depending on that day's news stories. Never content to stay in a studio when he could be on location instead, he became famous for his coverage of international humanitarian disasters. 2005 in particular was a breakout year for him; in those twelve months he covered the tsunami in Sri Lanka, Lebanon's Cedar Revolution, the Iraq War, and in a series of broadcasts that won him a Peabody, the landfall and aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. By the end of the year he was a household name, and in subsequent years he went on to cover -- among ''many'' others -- the Haitian earthquake, the Arab Spring, the nuclear meltdown at Fukushima, and the terror attacks which hit Paris in late 2015.

He returned to serious journalism in the wake of September 11, this time at Creator/{{CNN}}. After a stint with Paula Zahn on ''American Morning'' and another as the channel's weekend anchor, he was given the prime-time slot of 8pm weekdays, for a broadcast entitled Anderson Cooper 360° that runs either one or two hours depending on that day's news stories. Never content to stay in a studio when he could be on location instead, he became famous for his coverage of international humanitarian disasters. 2005 in particular was a breakout year for him; in those twelve months he covered the tsunami in Sri Lanka, Lebanon's Cedar Revolution, the Iraq War, and in a series of broadcasts that won him a Peabody, the landfall and aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. By the end of the year he was a household name, and in subsequent years he went on to cover the Haitian earthquake, the Arab Spring, the nuclear meltdown at Fukushima, and the terror attacks which hit Paris in late 2015.

After Cooper graduated from Yale University, he tried to gain entry-level employment with ABC, but was unsuccessful. Finding it hard to get his foot in the door of on-air reporting, Cooper decided to enlist the help of a friend in making a fake press pass. At the time, Cooper was working as a fact checker for the small news agency Channel One, which produces a youth-oriented news program that is broadcast to many junior high and high schools in the United States. Cooper then entered Myanmar on his own with his forged press pass and met with students fighting the Burmese government. He was ultimately able to sell his home-made news segments to Channel One. Persuading Channel One to allow him to bring a Hi-8 camera with him, Anderson soon began filming and assembling reports of Vietnamese life and culture that aired on Channel One. Branching out from Vietnam, he also recorded news stories for the channel from Bosnia, Rwanda, and Somalia.

'''Anderson Hays Cooper''' (born June 3, 1967) is a Peabody Award-winning American journalist, author, and television personality. During college, Cooper spent two summers as an intern at the Central Intelligence Agency. Although he technically has no formal journalistic education[[note]]his degree is in political science[[/note]], he opted to pursue a career in journalism rather than stay with the agency after school, having been a self-proclaimed "news junkie" since he was "in utero." After Cooper graduated from Yale University, he tried to gain entry-level employment with ABC, but was unsuccessful. Finding it hard to get his foot in the door of on-air reporting, Cooper decided to enlist the help of a friend in making a fake press pass. At the time, Cooper was working as a fact checker for the small news agency Channel One, which produces a youth-oriented news program that is broadcast to many junior high and high schools in the United States. Cooper then entered Myanmar on his own with his forged press pass and met with students fighting the Burmese government. He was ultimately able to sell his home-made news segments to Channel One. Persuading Channel One to allow him to bring a Hi-8 camera with him, Anderson soon began filming and assembling reports of Vietnamese life and culture that aired on Channel One. He later returned to filming stories from a variety of war-torn regions around the globe, including Somalia, Bosnia, and Rwanda.

* OlderThanTheyLook: It's a bit of a running gag now that he simply appears to have ''not aged'' since the late '90s, to the point where Creator/JohnOliver [[Series/LastWeekTonightWithJohnOliver actually called]][[note]]July 20, 2014 episode[[/note]] the Middle East "the Anderson Cooper's face" of international affairs because it ''never changes''. For reference: Anderson Cooper, [[http://www.politico.com/gallery/2012/07/anderson-coopers-15-defining-moments/000240-003029-fullscreen.html 1999]] vs. Anderson Cooper, [[http://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/2f42cc7089affc743cb58cc2e898154764329256/c=27-0-383-268&r=x404&c=534x401/local/-/media/2015/08/25/SNJGroup/CherryHill/635761153851021796-Screen-Shot-2015-08-25-at-3.54.42-PM.png 2015]]. In the former picture, he's 29. In the latter, he's 48. Yes, ''really''.

** BadassGay: Came out as gay in 2012, and is one of the most prominent gay journalists on American television.

->'''Anderson''': [''cooing to Snooki the sloth''] '''You''' know where Surinam is, don't you, girl? [''smooch'']

* SociallyAwkwardHero: Reporting live from the middle of a war zone that could potentially get him killed? Fun times for all. Going to a party with a bunch of people and being expected to ''socialize'' with them? Excuse him while he finds a rock to hide under.