Anderson Cooper was 45 when he publicly came out in 2012, but this week, a CNN viewer wanted to know the reporter’s age when he realized he was gay and accepted it for himself.
In his reply, Cooper explained that these were two very different things that happened at very different ages.
“I probably was … I don’t know … 7 years old, when I kind of realized,” he explained in Monday’s episode of “Full Circle”. “I’m not sure I knew the word ‘gay’ at the time, but I realized that something was going on, something was different. Probably, yes, 6 or 7 ”.
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As he grew up, he understood more about what it meant and even opened up to friends at school about his sexual orientation. But, in the end, he said he “struggled” with it as a teenager.
Cooper found that there were things he simply couldn’t do, such as joining the army at a time when homosexuality was considered a reason for dismissal or traveling abroad to areas where it was still illegal and often dangerous to be gay. That was not all.
“It was not what I imagined for my life,” he said. “I imagined a family and a wedding and all these things, which were not possible at the time”.
But he began to refocus his vision of the future after attending Yale University.
“I think I really accepted that – and kind of, I really didn’t just accept it, but I totally embraced it and came to really love the fact that I was gay – I would probably be right after college,” the now-53- year old said , adding that it was “about a year after college (when) I realized, ‘I don’t want to waste any more time worrying about it’ and kind of wishing I was otherwise.”
And that personal feeling of acceptance changed everything for him.
“I think being gay is one of the great blessings of my life,” he continued. “And it made me a better person; made me a better reporter. When you grow up feeling that you are outside of things, you are a kind of observer of things or not necessarily the mainstream, you see society from a slightly different perspective. And I think it can be very valuable and it can impact how you treat other people and how you see things. It allowed me to love the people I loved and have the life I had. Therefore, I am very blessed. “
As society began to understand this sense of acceptance, many of the things he once thought impossible became a reality in his life – like starting a family of his own.
In April last year, he welcomed his son, Wyatt, through a replacement.
“When I was 12 and I knew I was gay and thought about my life, it always upset me, because I thought, ‘I can never have a child,'” Cooper told People magazine shortly after Wyatt was born. “This is a dream that has come true.”