Anderson Cooper, CNN news anchor and heir to his mother Gloria Vanderbilt's fortune, is father! The TV journalist announced the birth of his son, Wyatt Morgan Cooper, in late April 2020.
The happy news comes less than a year after he lost his mother, Gloria Vanderbilt. In June of 2019, heiress and fashion icon Gloria Vanderbilt passed away. Her son, CNN anchor Anderson Cooper confirmed the news, sharing that she died at home surrounded by loved ones following a short battle with stomach cancer. She was 95-years-old.
The great-great-granddaughter of railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt, Gloria was a chameleon, who successfully reinvented herself multiple times. Over the course of her life, she tried her hand at everything from painting to designing denim, and in her latter years, she even became an Instagram sensation in her own right.
According to the New York Post, Cooper just inherited the majority her estate, a sum which totals less than $1.5 million. The publication reports that her will was filed in Manhattan, and it "says the recently deceased socialite fashion icon’s eldest son Leopold 'Stan' Stokowski will get her Midtown pad in a co-op at 30 Beekman Place, but 'all the rest' of her property goes to the CNN host."
But the inheritance is somewhat unexpected.
"My mom's made clear to me that there's no trust fund," Cooper once told Howard Stern in a radio interview first reported by Business Insider. "There's none of that."
"I don't believe in inheriting money," Cooper explained. "I think it's an initiative sucker. I think it's a curse."
The journalist continued, "From the time I was growing up, if I felt that there was some pot of gold waiting for me, I don't know that I would've been so motivated."
But with five Emmy wins, a GLAAD Media Award, and a Peabody under his belt, the television personality is doing fine on his own, thank you very much.
It's unclear if he has plans to donate any of the inheritance to charity, given his previous statements.
Prior to this inheritance, celebritynetworth.com estimated that Cooper makes $12 million a year and is worth about $110 million.
Sam Dangremond is a Contributing Digital Editor at Town & Country, where he covers men's style, cocktails, travel, and the social scene.
