Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell? Anderson Cooper Asks Bachelorette How Many Contestants She Slept With

by Rachel Sklar | 6:53 am, July 31st, 2009

» 3 comments

andy coop bach Anderson! There are just some things you don’t ask a lady — like, say, asking “Bachelorette” Jillian Harris how many of the guys on the show she slept with.

While filling in for Regis Philbin on “Regis and Kelly” on Wednesday, Cooper and co-host Kelly Ripa interviewed Harris and her fiancé, Ed Swiderski, and started discussing some of the particulars of the ABC reality juggernaut. Ripa asked Ed how he felt about Jillian kissing other guys; he said “I don’t know…at first I thought it was kind of weird, but it’s like anything — you get used to it.”

It was at this point that Cooper went in for the kill: “How many do you actually hook up with? Like, how many do you actually sleep with?” Shock, naturally, ensued; Ripa’s face was rather priceless. Harris took it like a pro, though, deflecting by focusing on the less prurient elements: “I kissed 10 guys, but only four with tongue.” Whatever, like that isn’t an average blogger night out on the Lower East Side.

But anyway, we’re not judging — Harris, that is. Cooper is another story — because it’s one thing to ask such a question as a questing journalist in search of the truth, but another when you have famously refused to answer such questions yourself. Cooper makes a point of not discussing his personal life, whatever that may entail, even going so far as to pre-emptively prohibit interviewers from asking “personal questions,” as Choire Sicha relayed in January (Sicha initially said that CNN made that a condition for granting interviews, but backtracked in an update, saying the network made its request but that he did not agree to any pre-conditions.) As HuffPo’s Danny Shea pointed out at the time, others have called Cooper on his refusal to talk about his romantic life while holding forth about other aspects of his personal life.

Now, these are, if not apples and oranges, at least slightly different fruits in the fruitbasket: Harris, as Cooper rightly pointed out, had “weeks of televised canoodling and lip-locking with a host of bachelors,” so the subject was directly in play; Cooper is not on television based on similar canoodling. Even so, as Shea also pointed out, Cooper is less a staid just-the-facts newsman than a media celebrity, with one of the more famous and cooed-over faces (and eyes, and dimples…) and certainly promoted as such by CNN. So – those fruits are maybe not so different after all.

Was Cooper just doing his job by, as Anderson Cooper 360 co-host Erica Hill pointed out, just asking what everyone wanted to know? Yes, but — people want to know lots of things. If Cooper has limits, then they ought to be fairly applied.

Anyway: You probably want to see the video. Here it is:

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nam

I actually think Anderson is in a fairly good position to ask the uncomfortable sex question on everyone’s mind question precisely because he himself has repeatedly been asked personal sexuality questions on lots of people’s minds by interviewers (including Choire) who know he doesn’t want to talk about that. If he gets it why shouldn’t someone else? He hasn’t complained when he’s been asked and he gives a response. The bachelorette is obviously not going to be thrilled to get the sex question, but she too gave a response. Neither one have to give out the facts the interviewer in asking for and neither did.

If it was one of the many closeted gays in news who never get asked about their sexuality putting the question to the bachelorette it would be different.

The main issue with the questioning with either one of them like this is that it doesn’t accomplish anything but getting the interviewer some attention. Maybe since this is the first time the bachelorette was asked there was a small possibility she might give the facts, like there was a small possibility when Anderson was first asked. Now it’s been established she won’t and it was established long ago Anderson won’t (and that he is gay whether he talks about it or not), so further questioning is not about any search for truth.

It was unnecessary and a bit rude for Anderson to make jokes about the bachelorette’s sexual activities, but he has been constantly subject to ridicule for years about his presumed sexual activities even by liberals so what goes around comes around I suppose.
libra blue

Hey Steve, I hope you guys at Mediaite know that you have just put a target on your back, Anderson’s TV Newser defenders will come on here and trash you for this.

Although I think Anderson was out of line when he asked the question, Jillian Harris is on a reality show that deals with this type of subject matter so it should not have been unexpected. If Ripa had asked the question it might have come across differently. On the other hand, as the post points out, Anderson is a celebrity and not really a serious, no nonsense journalist and CNN has always marketed him that way. So they do have that in common.

Actually Anderson has been lucky, the MSM and the paparazzi have always given him a pass and have never really gone after him in regards to his personal life. They must be getting paid off because no one is that good at hiding his/her private life. They aren’t even speculating about the Final Pixx baby photo that appeared on TMZ’s “Oh Daddy” post in May, even tho the kid looks exactly like him.

If Anderson thinks that interviewers should respect his private life he should apply the same standards to those he is interviewing. He even has someone delete any personal info from comments placed on his FB page and on his blogs.

Frankly, this question, like the “tea bag comment,” was something I would expect from the mind of a childish teenage middle school boy, not a 42 year old middle-aged man trying to pass himself off as a respectable journalist. Anyone who has heard Anderson’s “Loveline” appearance knows that he enjoys dirty little cheap jokes that will get him the most attention.

He reminds me more and more of Ron Burgundy every day, all he is missing is the moustache.

” You stay classy San Diego!”
Anne

Being a famous journalist who is deemed interesting and good looking by the public is the same thing as being famous for putting your personal love life in front of the camera’s for money, with your claim to fame being greasing up a guy on national tv? I don’t think there is a fair comparison here. Because that’s what the Bachelorette herself made into her job and puts on national tv, saying that’s like asking Anderson about his journalistic work would even be more fair a comparison than saying they are similar tv personalities.

Everyone has different limits, and Jillian Harris obviously has them further than Anderson does, as evidenced by her tv show and thus public life. And while Anderson doesn’t answer all questions about his personal life, despite the CNN request mentioned he himself has stated he doesn’t object to being asked either, he just doesn’t answer, and Jillian was in no way forced to answer either. I find it perfectly “fairly applied” for him to ask that question to her, considering her public persona, not to mention Cooper himself has been asked about his personal life not once but tons of times, despite not inviting camera’s around to track his dating life.