Anderson Cooper, CNN Anchor, Says Fatherhood Is Extraordinary

Anderson Cooper says he has been experimenting with a “new level of love” since becoming a father.

The CNN anchor honors the coverage of the first issue of ‘People’s first-ever Pride Issue’ with his little boy, Wyatt Morgan Cooper. He talks at length about coping with fatherhood as a single gay man while the country is grappling with the coronavirus crisis and major manifestations of racial inequality.

Anderson told the magazine, “This is a dream come true. When I was 12 years old, I knew I was gay and thought about my life. It always upset me because I thought, ‘I will never be able to have a kid.”

“And I wonder, what have I expected?” he continued, “I feel my life has begun. It’s an entirely new level of love. It’s different from everything I’ve been through, but it’s also very familiar, extraordinary, and intimate. It is amazing.”

Cooper, 53, announced on air on April 30, 2020, that he had welcomed a son via a surrogate mother. Wyatt was named after Cooper’s dad, who passed away when he was 10. His son’s middle name, Morgan, is a surname from his mother, Gloria Vanderbilt, who passed away last year.

Appearing virtual on “The Late Show” with Stephen Colbert days later, Cooper claimed former partner Benjamin Maisani would be Wyatt’s co-parent. Although the couple split up around 2018, Cooper said of her ex, “He is my family, and I want him to be Wyatt’s family.”

During his chat with ‘People,’ he thanked “all the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people who struggled for generations and have died never thinking this was a possibility.”