Andy Cohen was always the most talkative – until he ended up with a stint hosting Real Housewives reunions and then he couldn’t get a word in edgewise.
In a new interview with New Hampshire Public Radio the puppetmaster behind the Housewives super craze talks how he ended up crafting reality TV shows based on crazy pseudo-rich women and what led him to become the controversial figure at the of helm Bravo.
“My mouth has been my greatest asset and also my biggest Achilles’ heel,” Andy shares. Andy says he always wanted to get into TV, but his “wonky eye” stopped him from being in front of the camera so he got involved in producing and developing TV shows instead.
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Surprisingly Andy spent 10 years at CBS ending up as a producer for Dan Rather and 48 Hours. So that must be how he knows Carole Radziwill!
After deciding to make the transition to cable and into more exciting television, Andy ended up at Bravo which was then producing the raucous and fun Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. (I loved that show!). “People always ask me if Bravo is gay,” he explains. “And I always say I think Bravo is bi, because I think Bravo is open enough to go home with whoever it found attractive at the end of the night.”
While at Bravo Andy came up with the idea for the Housewives and the rest is history!
“I would say it’s anthropology of the rich,” Andy muses of his first ladies of Bravo. “I remember one of the first reviews in The New York Times for The Real Housewives of Orange County, which was the first out of the gate. They said someday people will look at this and say: ‘Oh, this is how a certain group of nouveau-riche women lived at this time in America.'”
As for his theory behind the casting process, there’s only one definite rule: “We don’t pick wallflowers, to put it mildly.”
And that includes himself. Andy can’t believe his transgression from serious news producer to crazy cable host of a night-time talk show and professional famewhore wrangler. “To have Dan Rather, all these years later, walk in here and be on my little ‘Playboy-After-Dark-meets-Wayne’s-World’ [show] was so cool,” Andy shares of his past meeting up with his present on Watch What Happens Live.
Andy says he loves his dual gigs so much he has no intention of leaving either his day-job (executive) or his night-job. “The one guiding principle over my 23-year career in TV has been as long as I’m having fun, I really don’t care what the job title is.”
[Photo Credit: Twitter]
THOUGHTS ON ANDY COHEN’S INTERVIEW? DO YOU THINK HE GOES TOO FAR WITH THE HOUSEWIVES?
