In his new podcast, All There Is with Anderson Cooper, the CNN anchor reveals a personal struggle – part of his life he has rarely talked about before.
Cooper began recording the podcast alone while packing up the apartment of his mother, Gloria Vanderbilt, two years after she died in 2019 at the age of 95.
CNN anchor Anderson Cooper reveals part of his life he has rarely talked about before in his new podcast.
CNN's All There Is with Anderson Cooper will debut new episodes on Wednesdays and will be available on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
According to CNN, Cooper began recording the podcast alone while packing up the apartment of his mother, Gloria Vanderbilt, two years after she died in 2019 at the age of 95.
Vanderbilt was a legendary fashion designer and artist. The great-great-granddaughter of railroad and shipping tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt, she lived a life marked by terrible tragedies and triumphs. In her apartment, Cooper discovered secret journals and fascinating keepsakes. In one box, he found a stack of telegrams from Frank Sinatra that had been sent to his mother when they were dating in the 1950s, said the CNN report.
“They are exactly what you would hope loving telegrams from Frank Sinatra would sound like,” Cooper was quoted as saying by the report.
Cooper’s father, Wyatt, a Mississippi writer, died suddenly in 1978 at age 50 after a heart attack, and 10 years later, Cooper’s brother, Carter, died by suicide, killing himself in front of Gloria Vanderbilt when he was 23 years old.
Before she died, Vanderbilt left hidden notes for Cooper attached to some belongings. Perhaps the most chilling was the note taped to a box containing the blouse and skirt Vanderbilt had been wearing when Carter died.
“I was surprised how lonely I felt as the last surviving member of my immediate family,” Cooper said, “and I discovered that talking with others, who’d moved through grief and spoke the language of loss, was life-changing." said the report.