Anderson Cooper is an award-winning American journalist, news anchor, author, and television personality. Dubbed the “anchorperson of the future” for his compassionate reporting style, he’s covered wars and hurricanes, Royal Family weddings, and Presidential elections, but his own name has also graced the headlines as a result of some spectacular family drama.
What is Anderson Cooper’s net worth?
As a news anchor at CNN, Anderson Cooper's salary is $12 million. But his net worth has been estimated to be much, much higher—at one point it was projected to be upwards of $200 million due to his lineage as the great-great-great-grandson of Cornelius Vanderbilt. Other sources, like Celebrity Net Worth, have estimated the broadcaster’s wealth at a more modest $50 million.
A brief history of Anderson Cooper’s Vanderbilt lineage
In the early 19th century, Cornelius “Commodore” Vanderbilt amassed an empire of wealth through his transportation businesses. He left school at age 16, borrowed money to buy a steamboat, The Swiftsure, and started his own ferry line between Staten Island and Manhattan.
Instantly successful, he added itineraries along the East Coast, then later, expanded operations by purchasing ocean-going steamships and establishing a groundbreaking route from New York to San Francisco. His vessels sailed through Nicaragua instead of around Cape Horn in South America, saving weeks of time and minting the Vanderbilt family millions.
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Known as a shrewd businessman, Vanderbilt engaged in fare cuts and other aggressive business practices to erect barriers to entry for his shipping competitors. Vanderbilt cashed in on New England’s textile boom by buying railroad lines to transport them via his steamships to customers around the world, and his wealth grew further. Eventually, he controlled over 40% of the country’s rail lines through his consolidated business, The New York Central Railroad. Upon his death in 1877, Vanderbilt’s inflation-adjusted fortune was a staggering $185 billion.
In his book, “Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty,” Cooper says that the Vanderbilt family’s wealth had all but evaporated by the time he was born. “My Mom’s made it clear to me that there’s no trust fund,” he said. William, Cornelius’ son, had effectively doubled the family fortune by adding to their railroad interests.
After his death in 1887, subsequent generations frittered the fortune away on a lavish, Gilded Age lifestyle. This included sleek yachts, stables of thoroughbred horses, an art collection of Old Master paintings, and the construction of multiple mansions, including Biltmore, the 250-room estate in Asheville, North Carolina.
The family's philanthropic endeavors to establish Vanderbilt University and other projects throughout New York City also diminished their wealth. At the same time, the transportation supply chain underwent seismic changes during World War II and the advent of the commercial trucking and airplane industries. By 1954, the Vanderbilt family had sold their remaining shares of the New York Central Railroad; the company declared bankruptcy in 1971.
How did Anderson Cooper make his money?
The bulk of Cooper’s wealth today is attributed to his professional endeavors as the anchor on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360.” He's a correspondent for “60 Minutes,” a documentary host, and the author of four best-selling books, “Dispatches from the Edge: A Memoir of War, Disasters, and Survival;” “The Rainbow Comes and Goes: A Mother and Son Talk About Life, Love, and Loss” (co-authored with his mother, Gloria); “Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty;” and “Astor: The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune.”
Cooper also inherited $1.5 million after his mother’s passing in 2019.
Cooper’s early life, education, and career
Born on June 3, 1967, Cooper grew up in New York City. He attended prestigious private schools before graduating from Yale University with a degree in political science and spent two summers interning for the CIA. Remarkably, his storied career in broadcast journalism began as a fact-checker for Channel One, a high-school-focused daily news program.
Cooper persuaded his bosses at Channel One to send him to war-torn parts of the world, like Myanmar (formerly Burma), where he used a handheld digital camera to personally report on the atrocities he observed. He created a fake press pass to gain entrance to the front lines of battle and would go on to cover stories in Bosnia, Somalia, and Rwanda.
Cooper’s dispatches caught the attention of ABC News, where he became a correspondent in 1995. He was known for his caring demeanor and model-like good looks, and he quickly earned the moniker “the silver fox,” for going prematurely grey—a condition he attributed to poor diet and strenuous exercise while on the Yale crew team.
He has received dozens of Emmy, National Headliner, and Peabody Journalism awards and was even designated with the National Order of Honour and Merit from the Haitian government for his coverage of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti.
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Who is Anderson Cooper’s mother?
Anderson Cooper is the son of Gloria Vanderbilt, an artist, fashion designer, and socialite. Known as America’s “poor little rich girl,” she was the center of a high-profile child custody battle during the Great Depression between her mother, Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt, and her aunt, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, over her $5 million trust fund.
Details of the family’s lifestyle were considered so scandalous that during the trial, the judge made everyone leave the courtroom in order to hear young Gloria’s testimony. Custody was awarded to Gertrude, who raised the child at her Long Island mansion, surrounded by her cousins.
When she came of age, Gloria cut her mother out of her trust fund completely. Her life was dramatized in books and on TV; Gloria herself worked as a model, actress, artist, and fashion designer, launching a popular line of denim, dresses, shirts, and shoes in the 1970s as well as an eponymous fragrance.
Cooper was the youngest child of Gloria’s marriage to fourth husband, screenwriter Wyatt Emory Cooper. His older brother, Carter Vanderbilt Cooper, struggled with depression, and in 1988, at age 23, he plunged to his death from the family’s 14th-floor Upper East Side penthouse apartment. His mother witnessed the tragedy.
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Cooper has said that losing his brother as well as his father (who suffered a heart attack when he was just 10) helped him to understand “the language of loss” which would eventually shape his career in journalism.
Cooper has described his relationship with his mother as “unique;” the two were exceptionally close, talking all the time and even giving each other relationship advice. They co-wrote the book “The Rainbow Comes and Goes: A Mother and Son Talk About Life, Love, and Loss,” a reflection on Carter’s passing, and were also the subjects of the 2016 HBO documentary “Nothing Left Unsaid: Gloria Vanderbilt and Anderson Cooper.”
Gloria was diagnosed with stomach cancer in May 2019 and died less than a month later; during that time, Cooper confided that he wanted to start a family. He decided if the child was a boy, he would name him after his father, and if it was a girl, she would be named Gloria.
His son, Wyatt Morgan Maisani-Cooper, was born via surrogate in April 2020. Cooper’s second son, Sebastian Luke Cooper, was also born via surrogate in February 2022.
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Is Anderson Cooper gay?
Cooper identifies as homosexual, saying, “The fact is, I’m gay, always have been and I couldn’t be any more happy, comfortable with myself, and proud.” He admitted that when he went on dates with girls as a teenager, he was secretly hoping to talk with their brothers and publicly came out after college.
“I think being gay is one of the blessings of my life,” he said, “And it made me a better person, it made me a better reporter.”
From 2004 to 2009, Cooper dated Cesar Recio, a Dominican businessman; from 2009 to 2018, he was in a relationship with Benjamin Maisani, former librarian at the Morgan Library and owner of three Gotham City bars: Eastern Bloc, Atlas Social Club, and Bedlam Bar & Lounge.
Cooper has received numerous honors from the LGBTQIA community, including the GLAAD Media Award, and was the first openly gay moderator of a Presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in 2016.
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Is Anderson Cooper married?
Cooper has never been married. Together with Maisani, whom he calls “my best friend,” he co-parents their two children; Maisani has adopted Wyatt and is in the process of adopting Sebastian.
"I've always believed that if you've been with somebody and that ends, in terms of an intimate relationship, if you love somebody, there's no reason why that love shouldn't continue," Cooper said.
What are some of Anderson Cooper’s most popular stories?
Anderson gained national acclaim for his coverage of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
In a more recent and particularly popular episode of “60 Minutes,” Cooper investigates why the characteristic of friendliness helped wolves evolve into dogs—and what lessons people can take from them.
