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Mom Gloria Vanderbilt's illness pushed Anderson Cooper to become a dad: 'I told her two weeks before she died'

The 53-year-old CNN anchor welcomed son Wyatt Morgan Cooper in April, less than a year after his mother died at age 95
UPDATED JUN 17, 2020
(Getty Images)
(Getty Images)

CNN anchor Anderson Cooper recently revealed that his mother Gloria Vanderbilt’s death pushed him to embrace fatherhood. The 53-year-old Cooper welcomed son Wyatt Morgan Cooper via surrogacy in April, less than a year after his mother died at the age of 95 in June 2019.

The journalist opened up for the recent Pride issue of People and shared how thrilled his mother was when he told her his desire to welcome a new life into the world. He said: "She was thrilled. I told her maybe two weeks before she died. When she started to get ill, it was very quick. [Son Wyatt Morgan, 6 weeks] was just an idea in my head and a desire — but I thought, 'This is the time to tell her.' "

Continuing further, Cooper told the magazine, “We had this incredible last few weeks of her life where we spent every day together, just talking and watching TV, listening to music, laughing and telling stories. She said instantly, 'Of course it's going to be a boy.' I didn't say that I would name him after my dad, but she knew that's what it would be — and she knew that if it was a girl, she would be named after her.”

The journalist also shared his mother always talked about her death and in a way even prepared him for it even before she actually passed away. But Copper said he “wasn't prepared for the realization that I don't really have any immediate family left” after Vanderbilt. Cooper was just ten years old when his father Wyatt Emory Cooper died during open-heart surgery at the age of 50. His brother Carter Vanderbilt Cooper committed suicide in 1988 when he was just 23. "It was a very lonely feeling that I hadn't really anticipated. It made me think, 'Well, all right, this is definitely meant to be’,” Cooper told PEOPLE.

Earlier reports have claimed that the political commentator's mother always urged him to become a father. During the premiere of their HBO documentary 'Nothing Left Unsaid,' in 2016, Vanderbilt told Entertainment Tonight that "of course" she wanted Cooper to have kids, adding, "I just hope I'm still alive."

However, at the time Cooper had no plans to bring a child in his life, he did not take her words seriously and joked about his mother's desire, saying: “Thanks for bringing this up. This is an ongoing issue. Doesn't every mother want their kid to have [a kid]? Yes. I've heard this many times, believe me. The clock is ticking."

In the same interview, Cooper noted how he will be different from his mother if he ever becomes a father. "I'm not as open as my mom is. I don't reflect much on the past. I'm focused on the future and planning and preparing for what's coming next, whereas my mom is very much in the past and thinks about things that happen and kind of reworks them,” he said at the time.

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