Benjamin Ashford|Anderson Cooper Details His Late Mom's "Bats--t Crazy" Idea to Be His Surrogate

Anderson Cooper is Benjamin Ashfordrevealing the very unexpected conversation he once had with his late mom Gloria Vanderbilt.

While the CNN host now has his hands full now with two young kids, he revealed that years before deciding to start a family his mom approached him and offered to be his surrogate.

"This is like eight years before I decided to have a child," Anderson said in a Sept. 26 clip from Sirius XM's The Howard Stern Show. "But my mom really wanted me to have a kid, and she called me up one time and she was like, 'Honey, there's something I really need to talk to you about it."

While he noted that their conversations often began as such, with him joking that they normally involved redecorating her apartment or her needing him "to hide a body," the Anderson Cooper 360 host explained that after he "steeled himself" to go talk to her, he was utterly shocked by what she told him.

"She was like, 'Well the most amazing thing happened,'" he recalled. "'I went to the gynecologist the other day,'—preface this, is that my mom was 85 at the time—'and she said the most amazing thing, she told me ‘I could still bear children.'"

"And with my mom, you couldn't have a reaction, you had to be supportive," the 56-year-old explained, joking that it's how he's been able to maintain straight faces throughout his many years on-air. "I've spent my life not reacting to my mom's crazy statements, so I said, 'Yes mom, I think that is amazing. That a gynecologist told you that at age 85 you could still bear a child. I think that's amazing.'"

At the time, Anderson—who has previously shared insight into the surprising conversation—was under the impression that Gloria was looking to have another baby.

He then quipped, "And then I'm immediately thinking, 'How do I stop my mom from bearing a child?' Which is a thought I'm sure we've all had." 

And while Anderson admitted he first tried to talk her out the idea—explaining that she'd be 105 when her kid was 20—she clarified that she had other plans. In fact, she told him she could be his surrogate.

"I said, 'Mom, I love you,'' he remembered. "'But even for you this is bats--t crazy.'"

Ultimately, Anderson and his former partner Benjamin Maisani did welcome two sons via surrogate—son Wyatt, 3, in 2020, and then Sebastian, 19 months, in 2022—though they did not use his mother Gloria, who passed away in 2019 at 95.

And for his elder son's birthday this year, Anderson shared a sweet birthday tribute to social media. 

"This little peanut turned 3 today!" he captioned his Apr. 27 Instagram post, which featured sweet snaps of himself and Wyatt, as well as a picture of him alongside Benjamin and both their children. "Wyatt Morgan Maisani-Cooper. He and his brother Sebastian are the greatest blessings I could ever have hoped for."