Guru: Andy Cohen

As some of you might know, I am a Bravo-a-holic and Andy Cohen is my guru. I adore this guy. Over the past two decades, the super-cute Cohen has gone from a downtown Wigstock-loving B-52s backup dancer to a behind-the-scenes news guy to an out-of-the-closet Yiddish-speaking kingpin of reality television. As Bravo's executive vice president of original programming and development, Cohen has not only helped transform the network into one of the hottest channels on the dial but has himself become a superstar. He hosts his very own late-night talk show, Watch What Happens Live, featuring his fun friends and Bravolebrities, fueling it all with his hilarious, never-ending Twitter and Facebook chatter. And then there's his regular gig hosting the now-infamous Real Housewives reunion shows. Cohen cracks me up with his "mazels," "jackholes" and of course, his campy interviews in which he plays the part of the earnest impartial journalist -- subtly skewering his beloved Housewives, exposing their shenanigans while at the same time getting to the heart of the scariest and most surreal moments and relationships of the season. Cohen's subjects adore him, and I think fear him as well; after all, it's to Cohen they owe their 15 minutes of fame. I just finished watching Bravo's gayest creation to date, Million Dollar Decorators, which premieres this month. It is sick, magical and stars the most insane, over-the-top, decadent and shallow decorators with the deepest pockets. Yes, I will be addicted to this show just as I am addicted to Million Dollar Listing, Flipping Out, The Real Housewives of Orange County (and Miami, New York, D.C., Atlanta and Beverly Hills) and Watch What Happens Live. I visited my hero Cohen at his office the other day to chat.

Kim Hastreiter: You seem to me to be a PAPER kind of guy.

Andy Cohen: I love PAPER. I've lived downtown in the West Village for 19 years. I still miss Florent and am a veteran of many Wigstocks, the Pyramid, Boy Bar and Save the Robots. I even danced backup with the B-52s a few times on stage!

KH: I first met you years ago through Ricki Lake via John Waters. Did you work on her show?

AC: No, we were just friends. I was working behind the scenes at CBS News in those days. After ten years I left to go to a teeny station called Trio, which in those days was really like a pop art channel. Then the plug was pulled and they brought my boss Lauren Zalaznick to Bravo, and she brought me with her seven years ago.

KH: What was your first huge success at Bravo -- the moment you felt like you'd tapped into a gusher?

AC: Project Runway and Top Chef. When I came to Bravo, Project Runway was in postproduction, and then it turned into this big thing and everybody wanted to go to the Project Runway finale show. We decided we wanted to do for food what we'd done for fashion so we all created this crazy show and Top Chef quickly became the number one food show on cable. Then we did a show called Work Out about this lesbian trainer, Jackie Warner, and then came The Real Housewives of Orange County.

KH: The rest is history. Did you cast the first Housewives?

AC: A group of us did and it was wild. It was all these blondes with enormous boobs. All the women lived in the same neighborhood, Coto de Caza. It was all these different conversations about class... the newly rich and how they spent their money, and how they were to each other's faces and how they were behind each other's backs. I think on that show I realized that we'd done something special when during season two all of a sudden, Jeana -- on camera -- told us that she was having terrible issues with her husband and that they were separated and slept in separate bedrooms. Suddenly, it became a reality docu-series soap opera. As we kept going, more shocking things started to happen as people were letting their guards down in front of the camera. Jackie on Work Out began letting us into her love life and talked about her mother not accepting her, and then one of her trainers, who was a beloved member of her staff, passed away. That shocked all of us. And then Lauri (from The Real Housewives of Orange County) who was down and out at first, she fell in love and found her Prince Charming. I was like "Wow! Truth is totally stranger than fiction."

KH: What were your career dreams growing up?

AC: I always wanted to be on TV. I actually used to think, "God, if I could ever find a job where I could play myself on TV that would be amazing." Now I'm getting to be myself on TV!

KH: How did you segue into being in front of the camera?

AC: Lauren Zalaznick really wanted to build up bravotv.com so she had me start a blog called "Andy's Blog" in 2006. I became a blogging TV executive (which was unheard of at the time) communicating directly with our viewers. Then Lauren said I should host a live show online. It was popular. Somewhere along the line, The Real Housewives of Orange County got successful and they wanted me to host a reunion show in order to extend the run. So I was like, "Hey! It's Andy. This is Watch What Happens Live!" I wasn't great, but I didn't suck horribly. I didn't have to do research because I knew every bit of footage that went into every show and was already communicating with viewers through the blog so I knew what their hot button issues were. We were getting so much traction with the web show so when a producer Michael Davies said he could do our online show on air in his studio, we put it on at midnight just to experiment, and it did really well. After about 30 weeks, we moved it to 11 p.m. and it did great. Lauren thought it was genius as it was the first show ever to go from online to TV.

KH: How did social media contribute to this success?

AC: From the moment we were on TV, we wanted to make it impossible to not interact with us; so we used Twitter, Facebook, everything. We were the first channel to pair up with MySpace when it was really big. It's kind of second nature for us to ride the social media wave.




KH: No matter how crazy these Bravo stars are, they always seem to be on their best behavior around you. Is it because they're scared of you? Are you like the Bravo godfather? You'll see some of these women acting like monsters and then all of a sudden, you walk into the room and they become angels.

AC: Once again, it's a team effort, but I think it's an interesting dynamic perhaps because I'm in charge of programming for the network.

KH: What is the craziest show pitch you've ever got?

AC: These people came in and said, "We're bringing this huge star with us and the star is so big we can't tell you who it is." And they brought Madame, the puppet from Hollywood Squares. They were like, "We're bringing Madame back!" It was so hilarious. Another time when I was in a pitch meeting with Cybill Shepherd she was like, "It's really hot in here." We were in her agent's office, and she took her shirt off. She was just wearing a bra, and she even got me to take my shirt off too. It was crazy.

KH: Is it true that the more unhinged, abrasive or hated people act on the show, the more popular the show becomes?

AC: No. I think you still have to love somebody too. They may be really tough but they have to be fun too. NeNe Leakes is very fun.

KH: I mean, come on, the women of Bravo are outrageous: Rachel Zoe, Kelly Cutrone, Patti Stanger, Tabatha Coffey, Jackie Warner, Cortney Novogratz and all of those Housewives are nuclear women. When you put them all together -- oy. Why do you think these insanely aggressive, strong, ambitious, unhinged women have gone on to become such stars?

AC: I think all of them have amazing personalities. They're all alpha women, they all have something to say and they're all very strong. As I've said before, we're not casting The Real Wallflowers of Orange County.

KH: Tell me about Marysol's outrageous mother on The Real Housewives of Miami? OMG!

AC: She's from Cuba and I absolutely love her. I think we do three things very well: mothers, grandmothers and maids. We have Rosie, the Countess's housekeeper on the first two seasons of The Real Housewives of New York. There's Zoila, the maid on Flipping Out, who has become a huge star. And there's a new maid Jacqueline; she's on our new show, Million Dollar Decorator. She's Kathy Ireland's maid and she's French and smokes the whole time and wears sunglasses inside. Then we have Josh's grandma Edith on Million Dollar Listing. I love her. She's a Holocaust survivor and is incredible. They went last season to look at a concentration camp. It was amazing. Then there is Gloria Zarin, Jill's mother, and Mama Joyce, Kandi's mother, whom I love.

KH: Tell me about your mother. Is she so happy about your success?

AC: She's kvelling. Evelyn Cohen is a powerhouse; she's hilarious. I love strong women. I think Jewish men like strong women.

KH: Why don't you have any straight alpha men on Bravo except for the chefs?\ You have the gays and you have the alpha women.

AC: We have a lot of alpha males. Jeff Lewis (from Flipping Out) is an alpha male. They might be gay but they're alphas.

KH: The Housewives are like a case study for a social-psych experiment. The geographic breakdown actually gives the world a glimpse into these very different class structures. Can you briefly define the different tribes represented on each show?

AC: The New Jersey women are about family. New York's Housewives are the most aggressive and I think they're very intelligent; they are so aware of themselves both on and off the show. They often try to produce themselves. They're the most media savvy. They're just very meta about the whole thing and drive themselves crazy, I think, in analyzing everything. There is a gentle relaxation about Beverly Hills: It's calm, it's easy, it's rich, it's pink, it's blonde, it's gentle. To me, Orange County is Knots Landing whereas Beverly Hills is very Dynasty. The OC is a localized community with a kind of intense drama about neighbors and really deep friendships wrapped up in a package that is blonde and big-boobed. Atlanta to me is just pure fun. Miami is still developing but I think it's sexy and passionate. D.C. was the most political and I think it's the first show where we really talked about race, power and politics.

KH: What has your job taught you about human nature?

AC: Wow, so much. I think that, as in real life, the more you get to know these people you find that you really do identify with little bits of every person and you understand their motivations; your feelings about them change. You may love someone one season and then next season you get to know them a little better and you're like, "Wow, there are more colors to this rainbow." Or sometimes you'll find yourself relating to or loving someone who you thought was just a buffoon initially. The bottom line is you can't judge a book by its cover. ★