Anderson Cooper’s mother Gloria Vanderbilt reveals past same-sex relationship

MANILA, Philippines – In their memoir, The Rainbow Comes and Goes, CNN journalist Anderson Cooper and his mother may have written about plenty of fond and painful memories. But in interviews with People and Entertainment Weekly, it was evident that the 91-year-old artist and socialite clearly had not revealed it all to her son, one of television’s highest-profile anchors.

“I, myself, when I went to [Miss Porter’s School in] Farmington I went through a brief so-called lesbian relationship with a girl in school,” she told editorial director Jess Cagle in an excerpt from their interview, adding, “We all did! It was very prevalent, you know.”

Anderson appeared incredulous at the bombshell revelation, saying, “This is news to me. You didn’t mention this in the book, mom.”

The elder Vanderbilt named the girl as Cynthia. “She came once to visit my aunt in New York on holiday. We had this sort of lesbian relationship and it felt so great,” she said.

“It felt so good and yet I thought, ‘There’s something about this,’ and this is before the thing I knew about my mother. I thought, ‘No, this is something that’s not really what I want.'”

“It was very brief,” Gloria said, revealing that she was 13 years old when she entered the relationship. “I think almost everybody goes through at one point […] Of course – the thing is – now we realize there’s no difference. Love is love.”

Anderson, who went public about being gay in 2012, recalled an anecdote about a pair of men among his mother’s friends. He said that she considered them as a “married couple,” in spite of the law not yet allowing same-sex marriages at the time and society being more conservative at large, he said.

“In my mom’s eyes, they were a married couple, and that always stuck in my mind. So I knew that when I did come out to my mom, I knew that ultimately she would be absolutely fine with it,” he narrated.

Gloria also told People and Entertainment Weekly, “It has nothing to do with whether it’s two men or two women, it’s love. And it’s just like being married, it’s what it is.”

The mother-and-son duo are set to appear in a documentary called Nothing Left Unsaid.

– Rappler.com