Ryan Seacrest Is a Killjoy About Drinking on TV During New Year’s Eve
Ryan Seacrest is a New Year’s Eve party pooper and wants CNN to have a booze-less holiday.
In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, the host of NBC’s Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve had some pointed words for his NYE competitors over at CNN, who choose to drink on air during the annual festivities.
“I don’t advocate drinking when one is on the air,” Seacrest told EW. “I don’t know how that started as a tradition, but it’s probably a good idea [to scale back], CNN.”
His comments come after CNN announced this year that the hosts of its NYE celebrations will be able to drink on the job, but will have to bring it down a few notches on and off camera. (Andy Cohen recently told Rolling Stone that “we will be partying responsibly.”)
To EW, Seacrest seemed to be returning some shade to CNN NYE co-host Cohen, who described the performers on Seacrest’s broadcast last year as “a group of losers.” (Journey was performing when he made the comment.)
“There’s some pretty respectable people or at least one, right?” Seacrest said, referring to Anderson Cooper, who co-hosts with Cohen. “I think there’s a serious journalist and then a friend of mine who has a lot of fun, but it’s probably a good idea. Although the viewers probably wish they would drink more.” (A drag!)
He added: “But I think they had something to say about my show at one point, which was I’m sure from the alcohol because I don’t think they would say what they said about our performers if they weren’t drinking.”
To be fair, much of the excitement of CNN’s broadcast comes from seeing the likes of Don Lemon, Cooper, and the other journalists on the network loosen up for a second and get rid of their on-air, “breaking news” voice.
Seacrest, of course, encouraged viewers to watch his show instead, calling it a “bigger, broader broadcast.”
“We will not drink until 1:05 in the morning,” Seacrest said, before, of course, plugging the tequila brand he works with: “Although, I might send them some Casa Dragones Tequila just to tempt them while they’re on the air.”
Andy Cohen recently spoke to Rolling Stone about the CNN decision, clarifying that the correspondents won’t be drinking, but he and Cooper will.
“My job is to take Anderson out of his comfort zone [and] my job is to be a party ringleader for everyone watching us on New Year’s Eve,” Cohen said. “And that is what I will continue to do. And as a matter of fact, if the correspondents are not drinking this year, I will be partying even harder on their behalf.”
“It’s fun for me because I’m a guest on CNN, so I’m like a visitor,” he added. “I’m going to just march back to Bravo at 12:30 in the morning and be done with it. And so I can kind of torch the place while I’m there, and then head out.”
OK fine, we’ll admit that Seacrest does have a stacked set of performers planned for this weekend: Aly and AJ, Fitz and the Tantrums, Tomorrow X Together, Halley Bailey, Ben Platt, and Ciara are among those to hit the stage.
