Andy Cohen marked National Coming Out Day by interviewing his parents, Ev and Lou, on SiriusXM's "Andy Radio" this weekend. On the debut installment of "Free Advice with Ev & Lou Cohen," the Cohens looked back at what happened when Andy first identified as gay.
The Bravo TV personality, 47, turned introspective in the interview as his mother recalled suspecting her son might be gay after she saw him performing in the musical "Carousel." Later, she uncovered gay porn under Andy's bed and an emotional letter in which he'd opened up about his sexuality to a friend.
Eventually, Ev confronted Andy, but asked her son to say the words out loud, "because that made it real."
Pointing to Andy's "dramatic" female friends, she joked, "I never would've liked your wife anyway."
Later in the interview, Ev Cohen revealed she had a difficult time accepting her son's sexuality for about six months after he came out, and sought help from a psychiatrist.
"It was 1989, and everybody -- all these young men -- were dying of AIDS, and I was worried you were gonna get AIDS," she told Andy. "I had to mourn my expectations that you'd get married, that you'd have children. At that time, those were not possible."
A good friend's words quickly changed her mind, however, and Ev has been supportive of her son, as well as active in the gay community, ever since.
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