Anderson Cooper bids farewell to ’60 Minutes’ after nearly 2 decades

Anderson Cooper is partying his way from 60 Minutes after almost 20 years on the show.

Anderson, who joined the TV program two decades ago, announced his exit on February 16.

According to the media personality statement obtained by Variety, “Being a correspondent at 60 Minutes has been one of the highlights of my career. I got to tell amazing stories, and work with some of the best producers, editors and camera crews in the business.”

“For nearly twenty years, I’ve been able to balance my jobs at CNN and CBS, but I have little kids now and I want to spend as much time with them as possible, while they want to spend time with me.”

Back in 2014, he opened up about joining the TV show in an interview with the Television Academy, he said, “I have no idea how I became a correspondent.”

“I am thrilled to be a correspondent on 60 Minutes. It is a show that I’ve watched from the moment it started, I think—and we used to watch with my family and talk about stories that we’re seeing,” gushed at the time.

The broadcaster further shared that he “instantly said yes” when approached for the job.

“And look, there’s a lot I still need to get better at, and want to get better at,” he added. “There’s ton I’ve learned, you know, it’s a whole different style of interviewing people,” he explained. “It’s doing long form storytelling, it’s different than doing things that I do, interviews that I do on my nightly show for CNN. The amount of research you do on stories, the amount of time you spend on stories, the production values of them, the amount of effort that’s put into them.”