Anderson Cooper Slams Star Jones: I Didn't Come Out as Gay for Ratings!

USMagazine, Thursday, October 4, 2012, 12:50pm (PDT)

Star Jones has made yet another powerful enemy: Anderson Cooper.

On Thursday's episode of his talk show Anderson Live, Cooper, 45, chatted with Bravo's Andy Cohen about his recent open letter to gay political blogger Andrew Sullivan -- in which the veteran TV journalist confirmed that he is gay.

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"I was really pleased with the response," Cooper told Cohen, who is also openly gay. "it's nice. I think it's important to send a message to, especially young people, there's nothing to be ashamed of and you can be successful and you can have a life and you can have many interests and this is one part of your life."

His one gripe about the experience? "The only thing that did kind of annoy me and actually it annoyed my mom [Gloria Vanderbilt] who brought it up to me, Star Jones."

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He explained of the former View co-host: "I haven't thought about Star Jones in I don't know how long. I was unaware she was even on TV still but she apparently shows up on a morning show . . .out of the blue Star Jones said after I sent this email Star Jones said this was a ratings ploy by me to boost ratings," Cooper complained, noting he "wasn't even on the air" on his CNN show for days after his coming-out note went online.

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"I seem to recall her hocking her wedding every single day to get free products when she was on The View," he added of Jones. "I seem to recall her lying about her gastric bypass surgery and making everybody else lie about it as well. So for her to suddenly emerge out of the shadows and suddenly attack me for this, I couldn't believe it."

"I don't even want to give Star Jones the attention," Cooper continued. "We invited Star Jones to come on this show and she turned us down."

Watch the full clip of Cooper's comments now.

This article originally appeared on Usmagazine.com: Anderson Cooper Slams Star Jones: I Didn't Come Out as Gay for Ratings!