New Year’s celebrations light up cities, skies around the world
From New York City to Sydney, millions gathered in cities to ring in the new year.
The booze is back on the televised New Year’s Eve celebration featuring Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen.
After taking a forced alcohol break during televised festivities last year, the hosting duo got right into the drinking early during the broadcast for CNN’s “New Year’s Eve Live” above New York City’s Times Square.
“It’s the top of the hour and we’ve been here for seven years doing this, and for most of those years at the top of the hour we typically have a toast,” seven-time host Cohen said, adding, “I’m hearing from a lot of people asking, ‘Does Daddy get his juice?'”
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They vowed to take a shot at the top of each hour of the CNN broadcast.
In November 2022, then CEO Chris Licht announced that CNN would be cutting back on the New Year’s Eve drinking that has become a staple of Anderson and Cohen’s annual broadcast. Cohen eventually agreed that he and Cooper would drink non-alcoholic beverages like pickle juice on the air during New Year’s Eve 2022.
“So we should talk about the elephant in the room,” Cohen quipped last year in a clip shared on social media of CNN’s broadcast. “We can’t drink, alright! We can’t drink. But it’s fine. It’s totally cool.”
But that dry era has ended.
In the second hour of Sunday’s broadcast, Cooper’s face was less dramatic after his tequila shot. “I think it’s getting easier,” said Cohen.
“Why do people do this?” Cooper asked.
Is Andy Cohen feuding with Ryan Seacrest? Not this New Year’s Eve
There has been some past conflict between Cohen and “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve” host Ryan Seacrest.
Seacrest claimed last year that Cohen “did not turn around and wave” back when he waved at the CNN hosts during their respective specials across Times Square. Cohen later said he never saw the Seacrest wave. But it was a thing.
Cohen brought it all back Sunday night after his second shot.
“By the way, just want to point out I made a big effort. We waved at Seacrest,” said Cohen. “He saw us waving so he cannot go around saying that I dissed him.”
“Don’t start it,” Cooper warned. “Don’t even mention it.”
“I’m not starting it,” Cohen replied. “I’m just keeping it real clean. We have waved. Connection has been made.”
Cooper slams the French: ‘They don’t know what iced coffee is’
Cooper was only one shot into the evening before kicking off the first possible international incident. The “Anderson Cooper 360” host knocked the French for their complete lack of iced coffee, as endured during his Christmas celebration week in Paris.
“The thing that drives me nuts about France is they don’t know what iced coffee is,” Cooper fumed. “Literally, I would go into every cafe and ask for iced coffee and they would look at me like I was the first person in the world that has ever even mentioned there is such a thing as black coffee with ice.”
French diplomats have not responded to the scalding iced coffee critique or the newsman’s incorrect use of “literally.”