Andy Cohen Responds to Ryan Seacrest’s New Year’s Eve Snub Claim: “He’s Got a Bug Up About Me”

So much for the apparent tension between fellow New Year’s Eve programming hosts Ryan Seacrest and Andy Cohen being forgot and never brought to mind.

During his Andy Cohen Live podcast Wednesday, Cohen addressed Seacrest having said on Live With Kelly and Ryan the day prior that Anderson Cooper offered a warm hello to him amid their respective year-end broadcasts, while Cohen did not. Cohen co-hosts CNN’s New Year’s Eve Live with Cooper, while Seacrest leads ABC’s Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve.

“He’s got a bug up about me, two weeks in a row,” Cohen said, referencing Seacrest’s previous comments encouraging CNN’s team to curtail its New Year’s Eve drinking.

Cohen then played audio from Kelly and Ryan, featuring Seacrest telling co-host Kelly Ripa, “Anderson, the best — he turns around and says, ‘Have a good show.’ Andy did not turn around.” Ripa was quick to reply that this was “not true,” as she said Cohen had been trying to get the American Idol host’s attention.

For his part, Cohen went on to say that he did not notice Cooper waving to Seacrest, and he even put some of the onus on his co-host and close friend. “Usually if he’s waving at Ryan, he’ll say to me, ‘Hey, there’s Ryan,’” Cohen said of Cooper. “And then I’ll turn around and wave. Or I’ll say, ‘There’s Ryan.’ But he didn’t do that.”

Cohen then called Cooper on the phone during Andy Cohen Live to get further clarification about the situation, with Cooper recalling that Cohen was busy talking with a producer at the time. Cohen confirmed that he didn’t purposely avoid saying hello to Seacrest and added, “I didn’t see him.”

This back-and-forth dates back to the previous year’s New Year’s Eve programming that aired Dec. 31, 2021, when Cohen, who had been drinking alcohol with Cooper throughout the show, referred to the ABC broadcast as “Ryan Seacrest’s group of losers.”

In an interview published last week in advance of New Year’s Eve, Seacrest said that CNN’s plan to limit on-air drinking was a “good idea.” Cohen and Cooper did not imbibe during their most recent New Year’s Eve Live, with the involuntary sobriety becoming a frequent topic of conversation throughout the show.