CNN news anchor Anderson Cooper’s mother Gloria Vanderbilt used a joint interview as an opportunity to drop a surprising secret that shocked her son.
The 91-year-old American socialite revealed that she had a brief same-sex relationship in her teenage years while attending boarding school.
“What? Hello. This is news to me. You didn’t mention this in the book, mum,” Anderson exclaimed during the interview with Entertainment Weekly in which the mother-son duo spoke about their joint memoir “The Rainbow Comes and Goes”.
Gloria elaborated: “Cynthia, her name was, and she came once to visit my aunt in New York on holiday. We had this sort of lesbian relationship and it felt so great,” Gloria said during the interview.
“Then of course, when I heard what lesbianism meant, it affected me so much because I thought this is something so terrible.
“Of course, the thing is, now we realize there’s no difference. Love is love.”
Anderson said his mother’s open-mindedness gave him confidence during his own coming out in 2012.
“I was about 12 or so, and I remember asking my mom about [her two gay friends] one night when they were coming over for dinner,” he recalled.
“My mom said, ‘They’re a married couple.’ And, of course, they weren’t a married couple in the eyes of the law and in the eyes of most people in America.
“I knew that when I did come out to my mom, ultimately she would be absolutely fine with it.”
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