Two weeks ago, the national Sunday newspaper supplement Parade Magazine had a cover story featuring three leading chefs, and two were gay, as they supportively reported. The same thing happened on Mother’s Day: the cover featured gay TV host/Bravo executive Andy Cohen, and his mother Evelyn. This is becoming a trend. Perhaps Clay Aiken will be up next if he wins “Celebrity Apprentice.”
In case you didn’t know, Cohen spent his first decade after college at CBS producing for “CBS This Morning” with Harry Smith and Paula Zahn. (He had a summer internship first.) Here’s where the LGBT passages came:
It was during college that Cohen began telling good friends that he was gay. One of the first was Amanda Baten, with whom he remains close today. “He had gotten to a place where he was about to burst,” says Baten, now a psychologist in Manhattan. “He felt comfortable enough with me to take that step, and it was a positive experience.”
Positive enough that not long after, he told his parents. Although supportive, they needed time to adjust. “I cried for six months,” Evelyn says, explaining that back then she knew almost no other gay people; she also worried about AIDS and thought that Andy would have career trouble. Then a neighbor told her, “Andy is Andy. He’s still the same today as he was yesterday.” Realizing that was true, Evelyn, who had always been involved in community and volunteer work, turned activist: She helped establish Doorways, an interfaith organization in St. Louis that provides housing for individuals affected by HIV/AIDS. “That really speaks volumes as to who she is,” says Andy. “I love her for it.”
Now Mom wants him to find a boyfriend:
What’s missing from Cohen’s life is a significant other. “I would like a boyfriend,” he says. “I’m a very happy person and it is the final, final piece of the puzzle. I’m looking for that shout-it-out-from-the-mountaintops, fall-in-love person.” Evelyn worries that he’s too busy to meet Mr. Right. “Is life passing him by because he’s working so hard?” she asks at dinner.
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