THE LAST INAPPROPRIATE MAN ON TELEVISION

How ANDY COHEN survived the 'Reality Reckoning' (at least for now).

- JESSICA PRESSLER

ANDY COHEN THINKS ABOUT HIS CANCELLATION A LOT.

What will it look like? When will it come?

"It's fascinating to me, the idea that you could say something and everything would be pulled away from you," he says. It was a bright afternoon in May, and we had been talking about an event he had coming up, "An Evening With Andy Cohen," at the 92nd Street Y.

Cohen had been thinking he might read an excerpt from his 2012 memoir, Most Talkative, but now he was having second thoughts. "It's called 'Cry Indian,' and it's about a prank I played on my parents where I convinced them that I thought I was a Native American," he says. It was a sweet, relatable story-about a joke gone too far and how being funny can sometimes tip into being mean-but he worried that the title and nature of the prank wouldn't land with a 2024 audience. "You have to be smart about what you say because there's no nuance anymore," he says. "People are just waiting to be outraged by every little thing."

This a is healthy concern for any public figure to have, particularly one who, like Cohen, has built his career skipping up to the line of propriety. As the host of the reunions for the various franchises of The Real Housewives, which he executive-produces, a daily live radio show, and the nightly Watch What Happens Live, he's known for his willingness to go there, plowing into sensitive subjects, addressing unspoken issues, and asking devilishly impertinent questions with his charming, crooked grin.