Andy Cohen Crashes CNN to Surprise Anderson Cooper on 59th Birthday
Andrew Rannells has the scoop on Anderson Cooper.
The Broadway star shared he was in a "very brief relationship" with the journalist during his 20s, confirming long-running speculation that a romantic storyline on Girls was inspired by Cooper.
Recounting how he told creators Lena Dunham and Jenni Konner about his experience dating the former CNN host, Rannells, now 47, shared on a recent episode of The Daily Beast's Obsessed: The Podcast, "They were like, ‘Oh, that’s a fun story.'"
He added, "It became the story that Elijah had in the series."
Indeed, Rannells' Elijah Krantz character dated a news anchor named Dill Harcourt (played by Corey Stoll) on season five of the HBO series. However, the two eventually broke up due to their age difference, with the much-older Dill admitting that he wanted to be involved with "someone less aimless."
When the season aired in 2016, Cooper, now 59, brushed off rumors that he was the real-life inspiration behind Rannells' onscreen boyfriend.
"I thought he was more of a [Bill] O’Reilly character," he told the New York Post. "I'm a friend of Andrew’s. I should ask him."
Noting that he's "obsessed" with the comedy, Cooper added that he would "be flattered" if he inspired Dunham and Konner to create the Dill character.
For Stoll's part, he said he "did not base this character on anybody."
"I won’t comment on it," the actor teased in a 2016 interview with Queerty. "I was playing Dill Harcourt."
Dominik Bindl/Getty Images; Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Warner Bros. Discovery
As for Rannells' love life today? The Tony Award nominee has been with his The Boys in the Band costar Tuc Watkins since 2019.
Meanwhile, Cooper dated Benjamin Maisani from 2014 to 2019. Despite their split, he enlisted Maisani, 53, to be his co-parent for sons Wyatt, 6, and Sebastian, 4.
"I don't really have a family," Cooper—the son of the late Gloria Vanderbilt and Wyatt Emory Cooper—explained during a 2020 appearance on The Howard Stern Show, "and so my friends become my family."
"If something happens to me or even if something doesn't happen to me, the more people love my son and are in his life, I'm all for that," he added. "My ex is a great guy and it's good to have two parents, if you can."
For more surprising celebrity couples who dated, read on.
Jim Smeal/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images
They played doomed lovers twice, in 1990's Too Young to Die? and 1993's Kalifornia, but in real life they had a perfectly lovely relationship.
"I still love the woman," Pitt, who was Lewis' date to the 1992 Oscars when she scored a Supporting Actress nomination for Cape Fear, told Vanity Fair in February 1995. "There's some real genius there. I had a great time with her...It was one of the greatest relationships I've ever been in. The problem is, we grow up with this vision that love conquers all, and that's just not so, is it?"
Jim Smeal/WireImage
Winona Ryder and Matt Damon
It wasn't just a Gen X fever dream, they really closed out the 20th century as a couple after, legend has it, being introduced by Gwyneth Paltrow (who famously dated Damon's best bud Ben Affleck). They split up in 2000.
After the fact, Damon called Ryder a "great woman" in a 2004 Playboy interview, while Ryder told Black Book in 2009, "Matt couldn't be a greater, nicer guy. I'm really lucky that I'm on good terms with him."
Jason Kempin/Getty Images
Cameron Diaz and Justin Timberlake
There was something about their chemistry at the 2003 Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards, where Diaz presented Timberlake with the award for Best Burp—because they dated for almost four years, seriously enough to issue a statement when their relationship ended in 2007, "mutually and as friends, with continued love and respect for one another."
Tom Kingston/WireImage
Alec Baldwin and Kristin Davis
The most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself, but Sex and the City alum Kristin Davis still had a good time dating Alec Baldwin when she was starring on the HBO series.
Referencing an old flame who ended things after she loaned him $5,000, Kristin made it clear on a February 2025 episode of the Literally! With Rob Lowe podcast that the mystery man was definitively not the three-time Emmy winner.
"Alec Baldwin was so rich by the time I dated Alec Baldwin," Kristin shared. “I would have never needed to lend Alec $5,000. Oh my God.”
Kevin Winter/Getty Images
David Moscow and Kerry Washington
The Scandal star appeared on the cover of InStyle Weddings in 2005 when she was engaged to the Big actor, but they split up in 2007.
Patrick McMullan/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images
Madonna and Tupac Shakur
Madonna never addressed the story that she dated the rapper, who was killed in 1996 when he was only 25, until 2015. When Howard Stern brought up her infamously feisty 1994 chat with David Letterman, she explained, "I was dating Tupac at the time, and the thing is...he got me all riled up on life in general."
Tim Mosenfelder/Corbis via Getty Images
Jake Gyllenhaal and Reese Witherspoon
After her divorce from Ryan Phillippe and before marrying agent Jim Toth, Reese starred with Jake in the 2007 thriller Rendition and they dated for a couple of years.
"She is, as I would say about most of the women who I'm close friends with or had relationships in my life," Jake said admiringly of his ex, "one of the smartest, strongest people I've ever met."
Image Press Agency/NurPhoto/Shutterstock; Charles Sykes/Bravo
Jesse Metcalfe and Scheana Shay
The Vanderpump Rules alum detailed her mid-2000s romance with the Desperate Housewives actor in her 2025 memoir My Good Side.
“We would order in dinner with his parents at his house, and—when we were alone—he would play the guitar and serenade me with songs like ‘Hey There Delilah,’” she wrote. “It felt like I was living a real-life fantasy with this guy I’d watched on TV and in movies for years.”
Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images
Meg Tilly and Colin Firth
Before marrying Livia Giuggioli in 1997 (they separated in 2019), Firth had a five-year relationship with Tilly. Their son William Joseph Firth, born Sept. 20, 1990, is also an actor who appeared with his father in Bridget Jones's Baby.
Jim Spellman/WireImage
Mandy Moore and Andy Roddick
This was them: The U.S. Open champ courted the A Walk to Remember star between 2003 and 2004, but ultimately it wasn't a love match.
"He broke my heart," Moore told Howard Stern in 2018. "I was a kid, he was a kid. I started dating him when I was 18."
Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images
Dave Coulier and Alanis Morissette
You oughta know by now that one of the most enduring mysteries in music history is who exactly inspired Morissette's iconic 1995 single "Ironic"—and the Full House star is at the top of the list of maybes! Morissette denied it in the 2021 documentary Jagged, but that's a tough pill to swallow.
Kevin Winter/Getty Images
Alanis Morissette and Ryan Reynolds
"Oh yeah, I love her music," Reynolds told People of his then-fiancée in 2005. "It can be awkward when she walks in and I'm listening to it in my underwear dancing."
The music stopped for the Canadians in 2007, but their breakup after four years together was very polite.
John Shearer/Getty Images
January Jones and Jason Sudeikis
You can't blame the Mad Men star for liking funny guys. Jones and Sudeikis dated for a few months in 2010, five years before she briefly romanced Will Forte.
Steve Granitz/WireImage
Minnie Driver and Matt Damon
The Good Will Hunting stars paired off in real life, too, but they didn't drive off into the sunset together.
"Well, I'm single," Damon said on The Oprah Winfrey Show in January 1998. "I was with Minnie for a while, but we're not really romantically involved anymore. We're just really good friends, and I love her dearly….I care about her a lot. We care about each other a lot. It wasn't meant to be, you know? And if it's not meant to be, then it's not meant to be."
The pronouncement was a bit too public for Driver's taste. "It's unfortunate that Matt went on Oprah," she told the LA Times later that year. "It seemed like a good forum for him to announce to the world that we were no longer together, which I found fantastically inappropriate."
Shutterstock
Helen Mirren and Liam Neeson
The stars met on the set of the 1981 movie Excalibur and eventually lived together (Neeson says Mirren gave him his first driving lessons) before they broke up in the mid-'80s.
"I should be so lucky and be honored to have spent three or four years with that lady," Neeson told ET Canada in February 2023. "She's really something else."
Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic
Jeff Goldblum and Laura Dern
Finding love in Jurassic Park? What a meat cute.
The co-stars began dating after filming the 1993 blockbuster, with Goldblum telling The Chicago Tribune at the time, "I was struck, I'd been a big fan of hers. I think she's an amazing actress, and a spectacular person. I was struck from the beginning. But after the movie we realized we liked each other."
They got engaged in 1995 but ultimately split two years later. They reunited on-screen for the first time in 2022's Jurassic World: Dominion, the sixth installment in the franchise.
Variety/Penske Media via Getty Images
The X-Files alum was in a relationship with The Crown creator between 2016 and 2020. Anderson won an Emmy for her turn as Margaret Thatcher in the Netflix hit in 2020.
SGranitz/WireImage
According to Arquette, the two dated while filming their 1995 Western Wild Bill.
Amy Sussman/Getty Images/Matt Petit/A.M.P.A.S. via Getty Images
Jeremy Sisto and Reese Witherspoon
The Clueless actor confirmed a little-known rumor during a Reddit AMA chat in November 2015, revealing that he used to date the actress. The two had starred in the 1992 TV movie Desperate Choices: To Save My Child.
"She was my first actress girlfriend," he said. "We had a long distance relationship for a long time. I was so into her."
Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for CAA
Bethenny Frankel and Eric Stonestreet
E! News exclusively broke the news that the Real Housewives of New York star and Modern Family actor were a pair in 2015. But by the following year, they had split.
Stephen Shugerman/Getty Images
Regina King and Malcolm-Jamal Warner
The Southland alum and the actor, who played Theo Huxtable on The Cosby Show, dated for several years before calling it quits in 2013.
Jim Smeal/WireImage
Kelly Preston and George Clooney
The famous bachelor was actually settled in with Preston pre-John Travolta back in 1987. They even lived together and shared a potbellied pig named Max before breaking up in 1989.
Barry King/WireImage
Val Kilmer and Cher
Why, yes, she does believe in life after love. The late Top Gun star and the legendary diva dated back in the '80s following her divorces from Sonny Bono and Gregg Allman.
Ron Galella/WireImage
Seal and Tyra Banks
Before he was Heidi Klum's ex, the "Kiss from a Rose" musician romanced a different supermodel.
J. Shearer/WireImage
Meagan Good and Joseph Gordon-Levitt
The duo reportedly started dating after meeting on the set of the 2005 film Brick, but they only stayed together for six months.
Bauer-Griffin/GC Images
Joshua Jackson and Rosario Dawson
The Dawson's Creek alum and the Josie and the Pussycats star dated for about a year back in 2002.
Ron Galella/WireImage
Chris O'Donnell and Reese Witherspoon
The NCIS: LA stud and America's sweetheart dated way back in 1993, when 17-year-old Witherspoon first moved to Los Angeles.
Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic
Sarah Jessica Parker and Robert Downey Jr.
The man who now rocks the Iron Man suit for Marvel admitted that drugs and alcohol were to blame for the end of his seven-year relationship with the Sex and the City star. "I liked to drink, and I had a drug problem, and that didn't jibe with Sarah Jessica," he admitted in an a 2008 interview with Parade, "because it is the furthest thing from what she is. She tried to help me. She was so miffed when I didn't get my act together."
M. Caulfield/WireImage for Bragman Nyman Cafarelli
Matthew Perry and Heather Graham
The late Friends alum and The Hangover star supposedly had a fling 2003, but it didn't last long enough to be more than a little blip on the Hollywood hookup radar.
Michael Buckner/Getty Images for EW
Tom Hiddleston and Kat Dennings
The 2 Broke Girls actress dated her Thor costar briefly in 2010, appearing very cozy while attending Comic-Con to promote the Marvel film. But their relationship fizzled by the time the movie premiered the following year.
For the latest breaking news updates, click here to download the E! News App
此内容由惯性聚合(RSS阅读器)自动聚合整理，仅供阅读参考。 原文来自 — 版权归原作者所有。