Cooper welcomed his son, Wyatt, less than a year after his mother died.
Gloria Vanderbilt would have done anything to help make her son's dreams come true. More than two years after her death, Anderson Cooper opened up about the extreme measures his mom was willing to take in order to see him become a father.
During a Thursday night appearance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, the 54-year-old TV journalist said his mom had offered to be a surrogate for him when she was 85 years old. Calling Vanderbilt "kind of nutty," Cooper added that she even went as far as seeing a gynecologist who confirmed that she would be able to carry a child despite her age.
"She says to me, 'Honey, I'm not talking about having a child of my own. I mean, that's crazy, I'm 85 ... I was thinking, you get an egg and fertilize it with a sperm, and I'll carry your child,'" Cooper recalled. "I finally said to her, I was like, 'Mom, I love you, but even for you, that is just batsh*t crazy. That is just nuts.' That is so weirdly oedipal on a whole new level. That kid would be on the cover of The New York Post for the rest of its life."
While Cooper made it clear that he wasn't keen on the idea, Vanderbilt made one more attempt to show him that she would be available should he change his mind.
"Then, fast forward two years later, I get a thing in the mail that my mom has sent me ... and it's a newspaper clipping and it's a photograph, the headline is, 'Grandmother Bears Child for Son,' and it's some woman, I think in Italy who was like 65 or something, or 70. And it's a photo of her in the labor room in the stirrups," Cooper shared, saying the story was of a mom who carried a child for her gay son and his boyfriend. "She's in the delivery room with her legs in the thing, and her son and his husband are right there, ready to catch. And my mom has circled it, and written in a note, 'See!'"
Cooper welcomed his son, Wyatt, in April 2020, just months after Vanderbilt died. Cooper shares the 1-year-old with ex Benjamin Maisani, whom he's focused on co-parenting with.
"I don't really have a family, so my friends have become my family. This is somebody I was involved with for 10 years," he told Howard Stern during an interview in May 2020. "He's a great guy. We didn't work out as a couple but ... if more people love my son and are in his life, I'm all for that. My ex is a great guy, and I think it's good to have two parents if you can."
RELATED CONTENT: