Andy Cohen wants people to watch what happens live as he hosts New Year's Eve—with a drink in his hand.
A year after CNN's decision to reduce alcohol consumption during the network's annual New Year's Eve broadcast, E! News' Justin Sylvester wanted to know the television host's game plan for sneaking in alcohol this year.
"Hopefully, I will not be sneaking it," Andy told Justin and co-host Adrienne Bailon-Houghton at BravoCon, as seen in the Nov. 6 episode. "I haven't heard anything yet, but come on, they need to let us drink. It's New Year's Eve. That didn't go well last year in terms of viewer happiness about us drinking. People really cared and I hope CNN gives the people what they want."
Advocating for himself and his co-host Anderson Cooper, he quipped, "Give the daddies some juice."
CNN's program has made headlines in years past for its booze-induced moments, which included a diss directed at Ryan Seacrest—who hosts Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve on ABC—in December 2021.
After Journey performed on the ABC show, Andy referred to the band as "Ryan Seacrest's group of losers that are performing behind us."
He doubled down and added, "I mean, with all due [respect], if you've been watching ABC tonight, you've seen nothing. I'm sorry."
Andy admitted he may have had too much to drink during the broadcast, as he captioned his Jan. 1 Instagram post, "I was a hair over-served last night, but man did I have fun! I hope you did too."
However, Andy later apologized for his comments.
"The only thing that I regret saying, the only thing is that I slammed the ABC broadcast and I really like Ryan Seacrest and he's a great guy," he said on SiriusXM's Andy Cohen Live in January 2022. "And I really regret saying that, and I was just stupid and drunk and feeling it."
After that year's coverage, CNN implemented their new rules and Ryan took a moment to weigh in on the change, telling Entertainment Weekly in December 2022 that he doesn't "advocate drinking when one is on the air."
"I don't know how that started as a tradition," continued Ryan, adding that " it's probably a good idea" for CNN to scale back.
The American Idol host then admitted he felt that Andy's drinking led him to comment on his broadcast.
"There's some pretty respectable people or at least one, right? I think there's a serious journalist and then a friend of mine who has a lot of fun, but it's probably a good idea. Although the viewers probably wish they would drink more," Ryan said. "But I think they had something to say about my show at one point, which was I'm sure from the alcohol because, I don't think they would say what they said about our performers if they weren't drinking."
E! News airs Monday through Thursdays at 11:30 pm.
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