CNN presenter Anderson Cooper has made his first public comments about being gay since he came out last July.
Speaking Monday on his new daytime show Anderson Live, he told his guest co-host Kristen Chenowith, “Everybody in my life … since I’ve been an adult and since I was a kid, I mean, I came out in high school. I told my friends, I told my family, I’ve always been out to my coworkers and stuff. It’s just not something I talked about publicly because as a reporter I didn’t think it was appropriate. It didn’t seem like part of my job.”
Cooper continued, “It just got to the point, where… you know, I’ve been torn for a long time between a desire as a reporter to just do my job. And at the same time, I think visibility is important – that the tide of history only moves forward when everybody is fully visible … I didn’t want to send a message that there was anything I was ashamed about, or unhappy about or not comfortable with.”
