Anderson Cooper and his mother, Gloria Vanderbilt, open up about their close-knit relationship in their new book, The Rainbow Comes and Goes: A Mother and Son On Life, Love and Loss.
Still, on Wednesday, Vanderbilt caught her son off-guard in a new interview when she revealed that she'd once been in a brief "lesbian relationship" of sorts with a classmate as a teen.
The romance, Vanderbilt told People and Entertainment Weekly editorial director Jess Cagle, took place when she was a 13-year-old student at Miss Porter's School, an all-girls' boarding school in Connecticut.
"Cynthia, her name was, and she came once to visit my aunt in New York on holiday," Vanderbilt, 91, said in the clip above. “We had this sort of lesbian relationship, and it felt so great."
Looking back, she added, “I think almost everybody goes through at one point…of course, the thing is, now we realize there’s no difference. Love is love."
Later in the interview, Cooper, who came out publicly as gay in 2012, recalled his earliest experience meeting a same-sex couple.
"I was about 12 or so, and I remember asking my mom about [her two gay friends] one night when they were coming over for dinner," the CNN anchor, 48, said. "My mom said, 'They're a married couple.' And, of course, they weren't a married couple in the eyes of the law and in the eyes of most people in America."
That memory, Cooper said, made him feel confident he'd be accepted by Vanderbilt once he did come out to her.
"I knew that, ultimately, she would be absolutely fine with it," he said.
The love between Vanderbilt and Cooper is palpable throughout the interview. How great would it be if all parents embraced their LGBT kids like this?
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