Despite having hosted Watch What Happens Live since 2009, Andy Cohen is often left out of the conversation of late-night television.
Speaking to Deadline, Cohen recently reflected on a 2015 Vanity Fair profile of 10 late-night hosts that he was conspicuously not included in. The spread featured Conan O’Brien, Stephen Colbert, James Corden, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Bill Maher, John Oliver, Seth Meyers and Larry Wilmore. It also featured Trevor Noah, who hadn’t even begun hosting The Daily Show at the time.
“I was very conscious that I wanted to be part of the late-night conversation,” Cohen admitted. He said he felt “salty” at the time about being left out. “I know what we’re doing; I know what it means to people and I know what it means to me.”
The Bravo boss added that he believes his work on Watch What Happens Live is often “discounted” because he is not a comedian. But that shouldn’t take away from the show’s success, he says.
“Watch What Happens Live is very modern late-night talk show,” Cohen said. “We live in an age where everyone is a star because of reality TV.”
He added that the show’s live model means “danger is baked in,” resulting in all kinds of wild antics from the celebrity guests that visit his SoHo studio. Whether that be Hilary Clinton, Tom Sandoval, or Teresa Giudice, Watch What Happens Live regularly makes headlines because of the show’s chaotic nature.
“Sometimes things become clickbait that just kind of pass me by [on the show],” he said. He pointed to an episode from earlier this year, in which Sofia Vergara discussed her dating life. “I didn’t really think about [Sofia saying that] and that became the big clickbait of the day from the show. I certainly welcome it.”
Cohen tries to maintain a fresh attitude when producing the show. “We try to push it, and once a year I sent the whole team an email, which is a yearly reminder that we can do things that nobody else can do,” he told Deadline. “Shows like that gives us energy.”
For now, it doesn’t look like Cohen plans on leaving WWHL any time soon — even if he never gets the recognition he deserves.
He said, “I think it was in year six, I started to hit the wall a little bit. Craig Ferguson said that’s very common. I started to feel like I was kind of ticking a box. But I came to and I was like ‘Oh my God, dude, you have your absolute dream job. This is a show of your imagination and everything about you and I just kind of snapped out of it. I haven’t looked back since.”
Watch What Happens Live airs Sunday through Thursdays at 10 p.m. ET on Bravo. New episodes are available to stream the next day on Peacock.
The post Andy Cohen Confesses He’s “Salty” About Not Being Considered A Late-Night Host: “‘WWHL’ Is A Very Modern Late-Night Talk Show” appeared first on Decider.
