Andy Cohen was recently on a Mardi Gras float with Kelly Rippa, Mark Consuelos, Anderson Cooper, and Bedlam owner Ben Maisani, so when we caught him last night when he hosted the MCC Annual Musical Spectacular Gala at the Hammerstein Ballroom, we asked for some deets. Turns out the Silver Fox is quite fastidious about his bead placement. “The only thing that I’ll tell you is that Anderson really knows how to be on a Mardi Gras float,” Cohen said. “He set up his beads as we were about to start. He does like a mis en place with his beads so that he was ready. And then the rest of us, who had never done it, had like no idea what we were doing. And you really do have to kind of take the beads apart and get them in a place where you’re ready to throw them, so he was quite prepared. It was like what chefs do.”
Meanwhile, we couldn’t help remembering that Diane Von Furstenberg told us the following at an event this past Friday: “You know what I don’t like right now about women in America? I don’t like when they are objectified in the Housewives of Miami and the Housewives of … you know? What I resent is when women are objectified … They’re just being encouraged. I just want every woman to know that they can realize their potential — but their potential is not necessarily fake tits.”
Naturally, we asked Cohen — who oversees the Housewives franchises as a Bravo exec — to respond.
“I saw that,” he said. “I don’t think that she’s seen the Real Housewives. I don’t think she’s seen a full episode.”
So would he argue that there is some sort of substantive culture or feminism in Housewives?
“I don’t think you can make a generalization. I don’t think you can make a broad statement about the Housewives without having seen it. And I think there are a lot of really smart people who would consider themselves feminists who are not only on the shows but who watch the shows. Like zillions of people. Like Bethany Frankel.”
