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Anderson Cooper, CNN anchor and CBS News "60 Minutes" correspondent, doles out the news with the gravitas you'd expect from an Emmy and Peabody Award-winning journalist.
But on December 31, we get to watch Cooper in Times Square with the king of Bravo, Andy Cohen, getting delightfully tipsy — and a little bit petty. (Thank you for letting them drink on air again, CNN.)
Such was the case on December 31, 2023, and his zinger was aimed squarely at Elon Musk over the MMA fight with Mark Zuckerberg that never was.
And — as somebody who consumes a lot of CNN because of my job as an editor — I cannot stop watching this clip.
Cohen and Cooper, at 10:10 p.m. ET on New Year's Eve, are playing "Can we 'Vanderstump' Anderson?" in which Cohen quizzed him about whether a quote is from a news story or the reality show "Vanderpump Rules" when the topic arose of the cage match fight that never materialized between the "shredded" Zuckerberg and Musk.
"Are you saying Elon Musk is not in good shape?" Cohen asked Cooper.
"Sweetie, I mean, have you seen the yacht photos?" Cooper responded, referring to photos published by Page Six of a shirtless Musk on a yacht off the coast of Greece.
It's not the dig at Musk's un-shredded figure that has me watching over and over again: The photos are over a year and a half old, X's CEO said last year that she saw Musk training, and who among us doesn't have "get yourself to the gym" as a New Year's resolution?
The clip reminds me that Cooper, who often delivers somber news from war zones and other sites of tragedy, is human: getting a little tipsy and saying something salty about feuding billionaires' bods.
"I'm sure he has a lot of fine attributes," Cooper added after Cohen switched subjects, then offered Musk a final piece of sartorial advice: "Wear a robe on the tender, is what I'm saying."
