Andy Cohen: ​“Dramatic and funny is the secret sauce”

It’s a crisp Wednesday in October, and Andy Cohen is sat on a banquette (fancy bench) in West London celebrity haunt Chiltern Firehouse.

Jazz plays softly on the speakers as discreet waiters set down glasses of rosé and house caesar salads to surrounding tables. Two large fig trees accent the room, framing the raised platform area that Andy is sitting in. All the world’s a stage as Shakespeare said and none more so than for the king of reality TV.

Dressed in a turquoise long sleeve, indigo jeans and a speckled button neck jumper, the 56-year-old producer is five hours into a long press day. ​“I am so tired of talking about myself!” he exclaims, somewhat unconvincingly, as he stands up to say hello.

The chat show host has travelled ​“across” the pond” for Hayu’s FanFest, a special day of live interviews and panels celebrating the network’s offerings – including Andy’s Real Housewives empire as well as his gossipy, fun late night chat show: Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen. Also announced at the FanFest is the latest addition to the Housewives universe: (deep breath) Real Housewives of London.

Earlier in the day, Andy had put up an Instagram Story from his hotel room. Dressed in a robe and holding a plate of pillowy scrambled eggs, he commented on their viscosity to the camera: ​“You know you’re overseas when the eggs are a little less firm… Good morning London!”

I bring them up to Andy, who is in the process of ordering a bowl of chicken pho to the table. ​“There was a period in my life where Ralph Fiennes, who’s a friend of mine, was making me breakfast and he really got me into soft eggs,” he says. The pair, along with a group of friends, spent an intense amount of time together 20 years ago, following the loss of someone they were all close to.

Sensing a slight change in the mood, Andy makes a self-deprecating joke. ​“I’m also a big name dropper. One should drop names in interviews, because it makes your job easier,” he says with a knowing smile. A master in the art of changing the subject, Andy is, if nothing else, a professional.

Andy’s come a long way from interning at NBC in the ​’90s. The slick, fast-talking anchor is now a veritable cornerstone of the TV game, having essentially pioneered the entire Housewives franchise, among other shows such as Project Runway and Top Chef and of course, Watch What Happens Live.

Whether its a deliciously messy Housewives reunion or a gamified segment on his talk show, Andy filters the authentic chaos of these programmes through a prism of wit, humour, showbiz sheen – and sometimes, booze. Remember that time he took a shotski with Hillary Clinton in 2020?

​“I’m a ham,” he admits. ​“For years, I was behind the cameras, watching the hosts of the morning show on CBS thinking, oh, put me in there!” Be careful what you wish for…

Hi Andy! A little bird told us you’re a fan of THE FACE…

THE FACE has been around forever. I was in London in 1988 studying abroad, doing a degree in journalism and I read it then. I thought [it] was super cool then and I’m sure it still is. I think you guys were covering The Smiths and Erasure [at that time], that was the stuff I was listening to then. It was a really exciting time to be in London.

I recently saw a video of you going viral at a Dead & Company concert, wearing a tie-dye T‑shirt.

Yeah, that video was going around like crazy. I’m just having a great time. I was scared because I was thinking, if I’m getting dragged on social media for having the time of my life then I truly will have lost all faith in humanity. However, all the comments were like, ​“Look at Andy having a great time!” So it was one of the rare times social media wound up feeling okay.

You’ve produced shows such as Below Deck and Shahs of Sunset, which must have seemed ostensibly niche at first but have turned out to be massive hits. How do you predict these things?

[Those shows] just fit into the formula of shows that we were doing. I think that Below Deck is a perfect workplace drama, and the fact that it’s set on the seas is aspirational and glamorous. They’re racing against the clock and racing against expectations of charter guests. There are so many built in points of drama that it just produces itself in a weird way.

Shahs of Sunset fit because it was aspirational, [too]. It was taking an unrepresented group of wealthy Iranians living in LA, but it was a real friend group of many years [who] were funny and human and dramatic. For all the shows we produce on Hayu, dramatic and funny is the secret sauce.

Would you say a lot of the people you meet in real life could make it on reality TV?

No. People are boring. We watch TV to be entertained, and it takes a certain type of person to be entertaining.

From the clips I’ve seen, your mum seems quite entertaining.

My mom’s hilarious. [I get it from her], I’m so outspoken because of her. I mean, she was texting me during my show the other night saying, ​“Why do the guests look like drag queens?” She kills every time. Anderson Cooper and I have her on our New Year’s Eve show every year. People love her!

Name a recent memorable moment from your chat show.

The other night I was eating a cookie that Martha Stewart made me on air and I couldn’t read the teleprompter, so Snoop Dog [who was also on the show] took over hosting.

What’s been your hardest interview to date?

When people don’t want to give me a straight answer and it becomes a word salad. There was this couple on the Housewives of DC [cast member Michaele Salahi and her then-husband, Tareq Salahi] that crashed Obama’s first state dinner without an invitation, and interviewing them was just a circle of nonsense.

[Actress] Debra Winger was [also] kind of giving it back to me when she was on the show. It was really a push-pull, but I think that makes it interesting. If I turn on a late night show and I can tell the guest doesn’t really like the host, I’m gonna keep watching that because that’s real and it’s interesting to see how both of them handle it. So that was the case with Debra Winger.

Who’s one person from Below Deck you’d never hire?

Chef Mila, who made the terrible nachos.

What makes a good housewife?

Someone who has organic connections to the group, who’s aspirational and funny. They speak their thoughts and have strong points of view.

What’s been the most legendary read on Housewives?

Oh my God. There was a read that Phaedra gave to Kenya at the season six reunion. That didn’t age well, by the way, because she was mocking Kenya getting a sperm donor, which is not something to be mocked but at the time, it was savage.

If you could design a dating app what would it look like?

I’m on five dating apps and I don’t pay attention to them, so I don’t know the answer to that.

What are you most looking forward to doing in London while you’re here?

I’m going to go to ABBA Voyage with Austen and Craig from Southern Charm!

Thanks, Andy!

You can find more legendary reads from Andy and his guests on Hayu now.