Anderson Cooper Joins Son Wyatt On People's Cover, Says Fatherhood Is 'Extraordinary'

Anderson Cooper says he’s experienced “a new level of love” since becoming a first-time father in April. 

The CNN anchor graces the cover of People’s first-ever Pride Issue this week with his baby boy, Wyatt Morgan Cooper. In the accompanying interview, he speaks at length about adjusting to fatherhood as a single gay man while the country grapples with both the coronavirus crisis and large-scale protests against racial inequality. 

“When I was 12 years old and knew I was gay and thought about my life, it always upset me because I thought, ‘I will never be able to have a kid,’” Cooper told the magazine . “This is a dream come true.” 

“It feels like my life has actually begun,” he continued. “And I sort of wonder, what was I waiting for? This is a new level of love. It’s unlike anything I’ve experienced, and yet it’s also very familiar and incredibly special and intimate. It’s really extraordinary.”

Cooper, 53, announced on-air April 30 that he’d welcomed a son via a surrogate. Wyatt was named after Cooper’s father, who died when he was 10 years old. His son’s middle name, Morgan, is a family name from his mother Gloria Vanderbilt , who died last year.

Appearing virtually on “The Late Show ” with Stephen Colbert days later, Cooper said that former partner Benjamin Maisani would be Wyatt’s co-parent. Though the couple split around 2018 , Cooper said of his ex, “He’s my family, and I want him to be Wyatt’s family as well.”

In his chat with People , he thanked “all the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people who struggled for generations and have died never thinking this was a possibility.”

Becoming a parent at an unprecedented time in U.S. history made him feel “invested in the future in a way I hadn’t really before,” he said.

“There’s something about having a child that makes you feel connected to what is happening and you want to make sure that the world this child is growing up in is a better one,” he added . “You suddenly worry much more about the future of all of us.”