Anderson Cooper breaks down as he addresses deaths of his mom, dad and brother while talking about grief

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK CITY: Anderson Cooper reportedly got very emotional as he talked about the deaths of his father, brother, and mother at the On Air Fest.

The CNN anchor was speaking during a panel discussion about his podcast ‘All There Is with Anderson Cooper’ on Thursday, February 20, when he revealed how he copes with grief, The Daily Beast reported.

Cooper lost his father, writer Wyatt Emory Cooper, in 1978 at the age of 50 during open heart surgery.

Ten years later, his elder brother Carter Vanderbilt Cooper died by suicide. He was only 23.

The journalist's mother was artist and writer Gloria Vanderbilt, who died in 2019 at the age of 95 after being diagnosed with stomach cancer.

Anderson Cooper thinks people should talk about grief 

Anderson Cooper got really emotional throughout the 45-minute session while talking about his late father, mother, and brother. He said that to battle grief, he started reading Viktor Frankl’s memoir ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’.

He told his colleague Audie Cornish, “I just thought, ‘Why isn’t anyone else talking—why aren’t people talking about this? We all go through the things of our loved ones at one point; we will all experience the loss and grief. Why isn’t everybody talking about this all the time?”

The political commentator also discussed how he went through the documents of his brother and his parents. He added that his two sons have started asking about his processing of grief and how it does not stop.

“It wasn’t just a one-shot deal,” he said about his conversation with his eldest son Wyatt, who he has named after his own father. “We had an ongoing conversation about it.”

Anderson Cooper reveals listening to ‘about 6,000 calls’ about grief

Talking about the calls he received during the first season of his 'All There Is with Anderson Cooper' podcast, the CNN host said, "I think the first season we got 46 hours of calls. We had about a thousand calls. I think this [season] we had, I don't know, 3,000. I think I've listened to about 6,000 calls now," PEOPLE reported.

“I spent months listening to them, and I found myself weeping uncontrollably, which like I never cried before,” he added.

Cooper also disclosed that he gets messages on his Instagram. “I go through my Instagram at the end of every day, like just messages that have been sent very quickly. 

“And if it's related to grief, I click on it and try and read it. I don't necessarily open it, but I click on it and read it, and I will try to respond to somebody, even if it's just a word or two or a voice note, but that's hard,” he added.

Anderson Cooper wants his sons to know where they came from

During the discussion, the 57-year-old news anchor recalled a touching moment when he found an image of one of his family homes on Manhattan’s 67th Street while going through his father's photographs.

On the back of it, his father had written, “I planted the wisteria early in the morning, and it survived the frost. Wyatt Cooper.”

Referring to it, Cooper said, “And I realized. I realized last night that he knew he was going to die at 50 because his dad died at 5,0, and he was making notes.”

He also mentioned his sons — Wyatt and Sebastian — as he added, “I’m organizing all these things so that one day, whether it’s, you know, as teenagers and I’m alive and they want to know about the past or I’m dead and it’s 30 years from now, they will be able to look and know like, ‘Oh, this is where I came from. This is part of my past.’”