How Anderson Cooper Achieved A Net Worth of $110 Million

For about three decades now, the CNN host, Anderson Hays Cooper has enjoyed a stellar career that has seen him work for three major media outfits. He started with the now-defunct education-themed TV channel, Channel One, and actually helped to make it popular. Then, he worked for ABC before moving to CNN. All these years, he has been so good in what he does that he has won at least 9 major awards having been nominated for many more. Recent reports have also revealed that Anderson Cooper has so far amassed a net worth of $110 million which means he has also fared really well financially. How has he achieved this much? That’s the question we hope to answer in the following paragraphs.

How Has Anderson Cooper Achieved His Net Worth?

It might interest you to note that the media guru was not trained formally as a media practitioner. Instead, he studied political science at the prestigious Yale University. So, how has he managed to navigate his career to the point of achieving this much, at the prime age of just over 50? Here is what we found:

He Got An Early Exposure To The Media

Anderson Cooper young Harpers Bazaar
Diane Arbus photographed Anderson Cooper as a baby for Harpers Bazaar in 1968: Image source

To start with, Anderson Cooper was born and raised in one of the most stimulating neighborhoods on the planet, Manhattan, New York City. Again, while his parents were not outright media professionals, they both had media inclination in their respective careers: his dad is the famous actor and author, Wyatt Emory Cooper, who also worked as a magazine editor in New York in the 1960s while his mother, Gloria Laura Vanderbilt, was also a prolific writer and a magazine contributor who, until her death on June 17, 2019, had authored at least 9 books that include art and home decor, memoirs, and novels.

As already hinted on, Anderson Cooper’s mother was also a regular contributor to such high-profile newspapers and magazines as The New York Times, Vanity Fair, and Elle. If Anderson Cooper has achieved such a huge net worth as a media practitioner in such a short time frame even without formal training to that effect, then these media exposures he got in his formative years must have played a huge role in getting him there.

Apart from the fact that his parents’ media inclination must have rubbed off on Anderson Cooper, he also had direct early exposure of his own. As a baby, he was once photographed by the famous American photographer Diane Arbus for the equally famous women’s fashion magazine, Harper’s Bazaar. Also, while he was only three years of age in September 1970, Anderson was a guest on the NBC late-night talk show The Tonight Show, alongside his mother.

Obviously, this inflamed his formative interest in the media which is why, at the age of 9 in 1976, he confidently participated in the then-syndicated panel game show, To Tell The Truth (TTTT) as an ‘impostor’. He eventually grew up to get known in all the schools he attended as a ‘media junkie’.

Anderson Cooper’s Educational Background Has Also Helped His Net Worth

No one can reasonably doubt that graduating from an Ivy League college gives you a certain edge in the career world. This has not been different for Anderson Cooper either. Although he studied political science at Yale University, he also had the opportunity of getting world-class connections and influences that helped to broaden his horizon, enhancing his media versatility.

For instance, while at Yale, Anderson Cooper was inducted into The Manuscript Society at the New Haven, Connecticut campus of Yale. The Manuscript Society, reputed as the ‘art and letters’ society at Yale is a high-level discussion group that has had some of the best minds at Yale (such as the preeminent professor and author, Matthew Bruccoli, the prominent senator John Heinz III, and two-time Academy Award winner Jordie Foster) in its roll. It is obvious that if Anderson Cooper has done so well in his career that he has amassed a nine-figure net worth in 3 decades, then he largely has his days at Yale (and especially his membership of The Manuscript Society) to thank for it.

Anderson Leveraged On Negative Stories In Order To Rise On The Career Ladder

If you are looking to get a secret of career success from Anderson Cooper, maybe, this is it. He rode on negative stories to rise on the media career ladder. After graduating from college, he tried to secure entry-level employment with ABC but was not successful. So, he got a job with the far less known channel, Channel One. While at Channel One, he sponsored himself to Myanmar from where he started reporting on students fighting the government for Channel One. Later on, he specialized in reporting from war-torn regions in Africa such as Somalia and Rwanda and also Bosnia in Europe.

This is how he got himself so popular that he eventually gained an easy employment with ABC as a correspondent and then, later on, with CNN as an anchor for a series of programs (including his eponymous program Anderson Cooper 360°). He also got his syndicated eponymous talk show, Anderson Live. Today, the rest is history. If popularity attracts wealth as we all know, then these means through which Anderson Cooper got famous are also the means through which he acquired his net worth over the decades.

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