Andy Cohen Opens up About His Relationship Status After Welcoming Son Benjamin Cohen
The Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen host gets real about raising his baby boy and his new approach to dating.
Andy Cohen is ready to raise his first child, Benjamin Allen Cohen, even if that means doing it on his own.
The Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen host opens up about being a single parent in the upcoming issue of PEOPLE on newsstands nationwide on Friday, February 15. “It’s not something in your mind — ‘Oh, I want to do this alone.’ But I like being alone,” Andy said. “I didn’t want to wait. To me it would have to be a very special person to say, ‘Let’s do this together.’ And I would love that, and that person could be having coffee down the street at this moment and I’ll meet him soon.”
But of course, Andy isn't really alone. He told PEOPLE that he has lots of support from his friends, a baby nurse, and “a swarm of women around who are ready to love on this boy." We mean, did you see how much love was in the room at his Real Housewives-tastic baby shower last month?
Andy said he will continue to date, but his approach will be different now that he's a dad. “I think that I will probably be looking for different types of guys,” he said. “I’ll be looking for guys you want to bring home to Mom or bring home to your son.”
The new dad told PEOPLE that he wasn't sure if he would even be able to ever have a family of his own, although he said he always knew he wanted one. “When I came out to my parents in 1988, my mom said she had to mourn the life that I wasn’t going to be able to have. And that life meant getting married and having kids,” he said. “[At that time] people were dying of AIDS; [that’s] what was happening in the gay community. So all these years later, gay men are raising families and getting married. There were points where I thought that it was too late for me or that I was really focused on my career, and I was having too much fun to think about it. It was still there nagging at me in the back of my head.”
Getting ready to turn 50 on June 2, 2018 was the push Andy needed to finally make his dreams of becoming a dad come true. “I just realized that now was the time. From the time I decided, ‘Okay, I’m doing this,’ which was December 2017, for the entire year of 2018 I lived my life as though it was my last year on the planet,” he shared. “I knew that I was turning a page on that chapter in my life. It’s not to say that I can’t go to a party anymore, but things are changing.”
Prior to welcoming Benjamin to the world on February 4, Andy opened up about his plans to continue to grow his family while speaking with Tamra Judge from his baby shower during a special episode on Radio Andy. "You know what, Tamra, I grew up with a sister and two parents ... my parents were always around; it was a very nice upbringing in the suburbs of St. Louis and I loved being able to hang out with my sister. We were like a little team," he told The Real Housewives of Orange County 'Wife. "So the answer is I'm really praying that I have the strength and fortitude to do it again."
See more from Andy's baby shower, below.
