Star Jones Is #HerIncredibleBad

Anderson Cooper, Star Jones spat over coming out remarks

Posted: Oct 04, 2012 -- 10:57 PM EDT
Updated: Oct 05, 2012 -- 7:01 PM EDT

By Syrenthia Harris

(RNN) - Sometimes TV personality's personal lives bleed over into the public, and one TV host is calling out another for accusing him of using his sexuality to get ratings.

Journalist and TV host Anderson Cooper laid his news-anchor image to the side to criticize Star Jones for saying he revealed his sexual orientation for ratings - an event he said was not televised.

Back in July, Cooper, anchor of CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 and host of the syndicated show Anderson Cooper Live, announced publicly that he is gay.

"He's a daytime talk show host and when the ratings slip in daytime, the hosts tend to tell you lots of things about them," Jones told The Today Show shortly after the announcement.

"There are times you generate information for ratings. "


Cooper was not happy about it.

On Thursday, Andy Cohen co-hosted Anderson Cooper Live and the two discussed his coming out and Jones' allegation.

"Star Jones, of all people. I haven't thought about Star Jones and I was unaware that she was even on TV still. But she apparently shows up on a morning show and says this was a ratings ploy by me to boost ratings," Cooper said.

Cohen noted that Cooper was off the air at the time of the announcement.

"That's why it so annoyed me because of all the ways to boost ratings, like if I was wanting to boost ratings, I would have waited to announce it on a very special episode, that would have been promo'd for weeks and weeks and there would have been commercials [for] 'Anderson's huge announcement,' and you would have a cutaway of the audience. But instead I was in Africa on assignment for 60 Minutes, I sent an email to a friend of mine who put it on a website," Cooper said.

"I gave no interviews about it, I never talked about it. I wasn't even on the air for days afterward," he continued.

Cooper said he invited Jones on the show, but she turned down the offer.

Jones responded via Twitter, saying: "I was wrong. @andersoncooper didn't come out as a ratings ploy. He used ME talking about him coming out @todayshow as a ratings ploy. #mybad"