Cooper says Wyatt's college 'will be paid for.'
Anderson Cooper's son, Wyatt, may only be one years old, but the 54-year-old TV host is already thinking about his future. On Monday's episode of the Morning Meeting podcast, Cooper got real about his financial plans when it comes to the toddler, revealing he's taking a page out of his mom, the late Gloria Vanderbilt's, parenting book.
“I don’t believe in passing on huge amounts of money. I don’t know what I’ll have,” Cooper explained. “I’m not that interested in money, but I don’t intend to have some sort of pot of gold for my son. I’ll go with what my parents said…‘College will be paid for, and then you gotta get on it.’”
In 2014, Cooper told Howard Stern that Vanderbilt -- who died in June 2019 -- was open with him about not leaving him an inheritance despite being successful. "My mom’s made clear to me that there’s no trust fund, there’s none of that,” he shared at the time.
Cooper went on to explain that he agreed with his mom on the matter. “I don’t believe in inheriting money…I think it’s a curse," he said. "From the time I was growing up, if I felt like there was some pot of gold waiting for me, I don’t know if I would have been so motivated."
The Anderson 360 host knows a little bit about money, too. In his new book, Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty, Cooper details how his ancestors went from being some of the wealthiest people in the world to losing it all. Cooper told People that his son inspired him to write the bio.
"In some ways I wanted this to be a letter to my son," Cooper shared. "My dad wrote a book before he died about his family growing up in Mississippi. And because he died when I was so young, a lot that I know of him came from that book. I wanted to write a letter to Wyatt about this crazy and unusual part of his family's past." (Cooper's dad died during heart surgery when he was only 10 years old.)
Cooper shares Wyatt with ex Benjamin Maisani. The couple welcomed their son via surrogate in June 2019.
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