modern family

Anderson Cooper and his ex-boyfriend are having “the best time” living together & co-parenting their sons

By · 14 comments
Anderson Cooper smiles taking a selfie with his son Wyatt, who is smiling holding a thumbs-up. Cooper wears black glasses and a maroon t-shirt. They pose in front of a lush green forest.

Daddies alert!

Anderson Cooper is having “the best time in [his] life” co-parenting his two sons with ex-boyfriend Benjamin Maisani.

The journalist (and bonafide silver fox) got candid about fatherhood in a new cover story for People Magazine, revealing their family dynamic feels “very natural.”

Cooper originally dated Maisani, a night-club owner, through 2018. When the 56-year-old welcomed his first child Wyatt via surrogacy, the duo made the decision to co-parent. And when their youngest son Sebastian was born in 2022, Maisani adopted Wyatt. Both children’s last names are Maisani-Cooper.

The family splits their time between New York City and a home in the Connecticut countryside, and have found balance in their albeit unconventional arrangement.

“I work nights, and so [Maisani is] there at night,” Cooper explained. “And we both wake up right before they wake up, get them their milk and spend the first couple of hours of the day just us with them.”

It seems their sons are getting the best of what their fathers have to offer, between Cooper’s experience as a CNN host for two decades and Maisani teaching them French. “I have no idea what they’re saying,” Cooper quipped. “I think they’re plotting against me.”

For his part, 50-year-old Maisani said their family brings him “moments of such bliss, humor and gentleness and sheer delight that it stuns me.”

If the whole thing sounds a bit odd, that’s because it is. But the family more than manages.

“We get along really well and … yeah, it’s weird but it works out,” Cooper told Ellen DeGeneres back in 2021. “It’s interesting, because he wasn’t really sure he wanted to have a kid –– which is one of the reasons we probably broke up –– but then, he came around to the idea. Now he is such a great parent.”

Though don’t expect the two to reconcile through some sort-of reverse Parent Trap anytime soon. “That’s not going to happen,” Cooper told DeGeneres.

And honestly, it sounds like Cooper doesn’t have much time for anyone outside his budding fam.

“I love spending time with the kids so much that the idea of taking any time away seems impossible to me,” he told People. “Certainly [I’d love to meet someone], I guess, but just things are lovely as they are.” Sorry, gays!

Having kids certainly changed both men. Cooper remarked that Maisani has become a “big softie” after seeing him cry during Wyatt’s first shot.

And Anderson (who’s bonded with GBF Andy Cohen over parenthood), now finds himself “suddenly crying at very human moments.”

“As anybody who’s become a parent finds out, all the clichés are true,” he admitted. “It changes the way you see yourself in the world. I find myself reacting in ways I hadn’t before.”

All that being said, it begs the question: will they adopt us next?!

Related:

Anderson Cooper recalls getting bent over and “humped” by Madonna: “It was mortifying”

Anderson Cooper is a Madonna superfan but even he has his limits.