Andy Cohen and Anderson Cooper closed out 2025 and welcomed 2026 with their annual CNN’s New Year’s Eve Live special.
The Bravo star, 57, and the journalist, 58, cohosted the broadcast from New York City’s Times Square for the ninth consecutive year on Wednesday, December 31.
“Bottoms up: This is tequila!” Cohen declared before doing a shot with Cooper to open the show. Afterward, the cohosts spoke about 2025 highlights, including a trip to Disneyland with their kids and watching Cher perform during an event for Saturday Night Live‘s 50th anniversary.
“Cher called me a couple weeks ago,” Cooper said, to which Cohen replied, “Did she ask for me?”
Cooper jokingly recalled Cher saying of Cohen, “How’s that troublemaker?”
The cohosts also mentioned Ryan Seacrest, who hosts Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve on ABC.
“Did Ryan call you … or text you today?” Cooper asked Cohen, who responded, “He texted me, like, yesterday or the day before.”
Cooper said that Seacrest had texted him that morning. In past years, he noted, Seacrest had sent him gifts.
“Like, a photo of himself?” Cohen asked.
“No,” Cooper said, adding that Seacrest had previously sent him tequila.
The longtime pals also discussed the hit hockey romance series Heated Rivalry, with Cohen telling Cooper, “Of the two of us, you’re Ilya and I’m Shane.”
“What?!” Cooper replied.
In addition to Cohen and Cooper’s signature banter, CNN’s New Year’s Eve Live featured performances by Robyn, Shakira, Brandy and Monica, Bryan Adams, Florence + The Machine, Raye, Brandi Carlile, Aloe Blacc, Patti LaBelle and Michelle Williams and special appearances by Stephen Colbert, Amy Sedaris, Rebecca Romijn and Jerry O’Connell, B.J. Novak, Leanne Morgan and Sarah Sherman.
Since Cohen joined the broadcast as Cooper’s cohost in 2017, the CNN New Year’s Eve special has consistently made headlines, perhaps most notoriously when the network banned the duo from drinking after Cohen shaded then-New York City mayor Bill de Blasio and Seacrest during the 2021-2022 show.
“Watching Mayor de Blasio do his victory lap dance after four years of the crappiest term as the mayor of New York — the only thing that Democrats and Republicans can agree on is what a horrible mayor he has been,” Cohen said at the time. “So sayonara, sucka. 2022! It’s a new year because guess what? I have a feeling I’m gonna be standing right here next year, and you know who I’m not going to be looking at dancing as the city comes apart? You!”
Cohen was similarly critical of the Seacrest-hosted Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve.
“If you look behind me, you’ll see Ryan Seacrest’s group of losers performing. … I’m sorry but if you’re watching ABC, you’re watching nothing,” he quipped. “We were doused with confetti from fake Journey on ABC. If it’s not Steve Perry, it doesn’t count! You get it? It’s not Journey! It’s propaganda! It’s propaganda! It’s not Journey! It’s not Journey! No, that was not Journey. Steve Perry is Journey.”
Cohen later apologized to Seacrest, 51, and the two made amends. Cohen and Cooper were still banned from drinking during the 2022-2023 broadcast, but their tequila shots tradition returned the following year.
Prior to the 2025-2026 show, Cooper and Cohen reflected on their favorite memories from their years of cohosting the New Year’s Eve special.
“We can’t talk about New Year’s Eve without talking about your many, many occasions of being in a puddle of giggles,” Cohen told Cooper in a CNN video earlier this month. “I say to people my job is to make you laugh on New Year’s because people love to hear you laugh. And I think God bless you for the work you do all year long. You’re keeping ‘em honest right here on CNN, and this is your time and all of our time to let loose and enjoy.”
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