There was a lot of initial interest in Andy Cohen’s impending fatherhood when he first announced he was expecting a child via surrogacy. Andy is a single man, a gay man who hasn’t been in a serious relationship for a few years. He’s 50 years old and this is his first child. So, there was interest. Then he welcomed baby Benjamin Allen Cohen and it did seem like people had already lost interest? But maybe that’s because we hadn’t seen this baby’s full head of hair!! LOOK AT BENJAMIN. That hair, my goodness. I would be interested in knowing what the surrogate looked like because I don’t think Benjamin looks much like Andy. Andy spoke to Jess Cagle extensively about the surrogacy process and fatherhood:
“I was in the delivery room. I had been hoping that he would have a full head of hair, and he really overdelivered,” jokes Andy Cohen, 50. “That was the first thing you see, the head of hair coming out. And I was amazed.”
After Cohen “cut the umbilical cord” himself, doctors cleaned Benjamin off and brought him over to the new dad, who then went skin-to-skin with his newborn for the first time. “He was so alert for the first two hours. His eyes were wide open. He didn’t cry; he was just calm,” Cohen recalls to PEOPLE. “I kind of have no words for it.”
To bring his desire to become a dad to life, Cohen “worked with an organization that helps you find the egg donor and the surrogate, and you kind of package the whole process…I worked with an incredible surrogate. She was in California. Surrogacy is illegal in so many states, including New York. I don’t understand why. It’s a voluntary process, obviously. My surrogate just viewed it as, she was giving me the ultimate gift. She gave me life. So I’ll be forever indebted to her.”
The Bravo host shares that he felt “very lucky” in that the embryo that turned into Benjamin was placed in his surrogate about a week before he turned 50 and that there were no complications, adding that he would’ve been happy with either a boy or a girl as long as it was a “healthy baby.”
“I think the biggest moment for me in the process was this summer,” Cohen recalls. “I was shooting the Southern Charm reunion and we were on a lunch break, and my surrogate texted me a video of the first sonogram. I was in my dressing room in tears. That was the moment for me where I was like, whoa.”
Cohen may not have become a first-time parent until a little later in life than most, but the advantage of that, he tells PEOPLE, is that he has “a sense of calm that I didn’t have 10 [or] 20 years ago.”
“I think I will be [a] strict [dad], but I have a sense of what to get hysterical about and what to let slide,” he says. “I don’t want to be a helicopter dad. I don’t want to stress him out. I don’t want to stress myself out. Well, that’s already happened,” the star admits of the latter reality. “That’s just part of the job.”
“My surrogate just viewed it as, she was giving me the ultimate gift…” That’s the only thing that stuck out at me as strange – of course she sees it as the ultimate gift, but does HE see it that way too? As for becoming a father at 50 and hopefully being calmer now than he was at 30 or 35… okay. I hope he’s calmer too.
Cover courtesy of People, additional photo courtesy of WENN.
Debut? Didn’t he debut on instagram, multiple times, already? How many times is this (cute) kid gonna debut? lol
The surrogate doesn’t contribute genetic material to the baby. He chose an egg donor , the surrogate carried the child.
By getting a separate egg donor and a separate gestational carrier, in a cynical way he made sure that none of the women in the process can lay physical or emotional claim to the child. Good look to the kid, he will need it or at least I hope he inherits a lot of money from Andy to pay for future therapy!
That’s actually better for the women, too.
And yes, that child will definitely need luck, but I think that of anyone who has a child entirely on their own. It’s a challenging path to choose- even with an abundance of financial resources.
And the egg donor now has a much higher risk of a certain type of cancer. (Can’t remember which one, but it’s due to all of the hormones that she took in order for them to harvest her eggs.) He didn’t say anything about being thankful for her, too.
There is really not enough evidence to show a serious increase in cancer for egg donors. Obviously, the same risk would befall those who do IVF (same process; same hormones). It simply hasn’t been around long enough for us to know anything definitively and the data is mixed at best.
Women who do IVF would be at
The same increased risk.. in any case this is why she probably asked for a good amount of money for compensation.. so it isn’t really a gift
He didn’t go up to some woman and ask her to carry his child
The egg donor was probably anonymous. You don’t meet and spend time around them like you do with a surrogate.
it could’ve been a friend or relative (in-law) we just don’t know. I hope the baby has a mother figure, he probably already took care of that.
Yeah you beat me to it – she was “only” the carrier of the baby (ok god knows that is a lot, I’ve had 2 but she isn’t the genetic mother), so her appearance has not bearing
I think this article is using surrogate incorrectly here. In the description, it mentions using an egg donor so the surrogate is actually the gestational carrier so the baby would have no resemblance to the woman that carried.
Cute kid and I wonder if the hair will stay or fall out? For mine, at about 4 months all the hair on the top of their heads fell out and they looks like angry balding men for about 2 months before it grew back.
My younger nephew was born with a headful of dark hair like that. It never fell out, just thinned a *bit* when he was about 4-5 months, then came back with. a. vengeance! lol. All throughout his childhood, he had thick, dark STRAIGHT hair (really beautiful). It always dried straight, no matter how you combed it. Pre-teen, he started wearing it in that Bieber look (ugh! lol)
Then after puberty hit, it developed a wave! Since high school (he’s now in college), he cut it really short, with a side part and off his face, and when he cut it and brushed it back, we saw he had this amazing widow’s peak!
Yes! My oldest’s hair fell out on top, too and it was so alarming to me at the time! It went from dark brown to blond, which was surprising, too. But my niece came out with a full head of black hair and it never fell out. It just gradually lightened in color.
Andy’s baby is adorable and I do see a resemblance around the eyes.
Yes, I was just thinking the baby has Andy’s eyes
Maybe Andy will mellow since becoming a father? Time will tell
Mazel tov on a lovely healthy baby. I’m happy when someone who truly wants kids is able to have one; I just hope he doesn’t teach his kid his misogynistic behaviors. I hope in his private life he’s not as big of a douche as he seems to be in his public persona.
Wishing little Benjamin a happy, healthy life!
I think a lot of people wonder about the toll it takes on the surrogate, which is why he answered that way.
I was shocked to find out surrogacy (paid) is illegal in NY. What an outdated law.
I’m a firm believer that someone can have a stage persona so to speak, and be a calm person in their day to day life. I’m happy for him.
Agree on both counts. He was talking specifically about surrogacy, and so his answer just referenced why carrying his child was important to the surrogate. I don’t see anything “odd” about how he answered.
On your second point, I also agree. A good friend of mine became chummy with Robin Williams(obviously years ago) and when he was up in Lake Tahoe they would go mountain biking. He said Robin was so quiet, normal and unassuming, but when someone recognized him, he knew he had to turn on the Robin that everyone knew or they would be disappointed. My friend said it was kind of amazing to watch him go back and forth . Maybe Andy isn’t completely annoying in real life.
She actually was a gestational carrier, since there was also an egg donor.
Where I live, surrogacy culminates in having to actually adopt the child from the woman; I guess to make sure that the lawyers and such get their cut of the money, too.
Surrogacy is completely illegal where I live and in most euoprran countries in general. I don’t think this is gonna change in the near future either
“My surrogate just viewed it as, she was giving me the ultimate gift…” That’s the only thing that stuck out at me as strange – of course she sees it as the ultimate gift, but does HE see it that way too?
I feel like he answered that question quite well with “She gave me life. So I’ll be forever indebted to her.”
Where’s the confusion?
Came here to say the same.
EXACTLY
he also said she gave him life and he would forever be indepted to her so of course he sees that it’s the ultimate gift…
Beautiful baby! Best of luck to the new Dad.
If he had an egg donor and a surrogate then isn’t it irrelevant what the surrogate looks like?
Don’t like or support home.
Don’t care about baby.
Another human being for him to exploit.
Someone I used to be friends with in high school just had a baby and I swear, it looks like this baby is wearing a Liza wig 24/7 😂
My daughter was born with this kind of mop. People commented on it everywhere we went. A nurse neighbor of ours took one look at her when we returned home from the hospital and said, “Don’t get too used to that hair of hers. It’ll all fall out.” I dismissed this thinking she had to be wrong. But alas, she’d been right and almost all of it fell out. To the point that one day, although she was in a pink outfit with a pink head ribbon, someone asked me how old my son was. 😠 😡
I have a baby girl who was born with an absolute WIG of hair hahah it was unreal. It literally looked like we put a wig on her head. It was LONG, thick and black.
My husband is Hispanic, I’m white. Very fair white. The babies in my family are always bald and nearly see through at birth. My family was going CRAZY over this mop of hair on my baby. My husband’s family was not surprised at all.
My baby never lost any of her hair and she still has a ton of thick curly black hair as a toddler. I bet people will stop Andy everywhere he goes to discuss his baby’s hair. That’s what happened to me! She really stood out and I spent a lot of time talking to strangers about my baby’s outrageous hair!
Half Italian here. My sibs and I all had full heads of dark hair when we were born. My sister had the thickest and fastest-growing. She had her first haircut, a chin-length bob with bangs, at 3 MONTHS OLD.
The baby looks a lot lime my daughter as a newborn, same head full of hair that didn’t fall out it just keeps growing.
I have met Andy and he is a really sweet person! I hung out with him at an event last summer and he was absolutely a doll. I think he is going to be a great dad. I think he is going to do the BEST HE CAN. That’s all anyone can do! Instead of us looking at how he might fail, let us envision how he can succeed. I believe him to be a very kind person and I believe Benjamin will be just fine.
I’ve read all his books and he started out as a serious journalist on CBS. Bravo stuff though defintely made him rich and famous. He has a really close relationship with his parents so I think that’s a good sign and hopefully his mom and dad and sister will be very involved. Wonder how Wacha’s handling it…:-)
I’m here for single people (of whatever sexuality) with the means and the dreams for parenthood seeing it come true (through surrogacy or adoption).
I wish it was easier for people like that to adopt … so many people who’d love children, and so many children who’d love parents, it seems crazy that it can be so tough to match them up
100%. I was almost NOT adopted because my wannabe-parents were elderly. It is so rare for a child to be wanted — let’s not pick and choose! The only reason my adoption even went through was because I’d encouraged my classmates to support me and my guardians, and I turned in page after page to the judge. If I hadn’t brought all that, I would’ve been returned to my mother… whom I had not seen in five years, and who wasn’t truly interested in raising me. This is so important!
Edit: One day I finally connected LGBT to my own adoption, and I realized how similar the two are. Good parents are good parents! Come on!
Cute baby! I saw Andy and his gestational carrier in the waiting room at my Ob/gyn 1 week before his baby was born (I was at my 6 wk PP check up). He was super nervous/excited.
Congrats to him! I hate him. I do. He is a misogynist who runs all of Bravo. He has made his bread and butter off of adult women who have suffered trauma. “Watch What Happens Live” throws the spotlight off of him — “who, me? teehee” — but he is judge, jury, executive producer. He exploits and profits from broken women. Sorry, he’s cute and funny, but my very first thought was “hope it’s not a girl” — he is horrible.
Still, it’s lovely that he is a father. Hope it puts stuff into perspective for him. Well done and good luck.
“broken women”
this is harsh, i actually love a lot of the housewives. besides, we’re all a little broken lol
Parenthood is a good thing, especially when children without good parents just need love and care. I am so happy to see this.