Anderson Cooper Bids Emotional Farewell to CBS’ 60 Minutes After 20 Years

Anderson Cooper has officially said goodbye to CBS News’ “60 Minutes” after nearly 20 years.

The iconic news anchor delivered an emotional farewell in a 60 Minutes Overtime segment shared to YouTube, where he expressed, “I hope ’60 Minutes’ remains ’60 Minutes.”

“There’s very few things that have been around for as long as ’60 Minutes’ has and [have been able to] maintain the quality that it has,” Cooper said. “Things can always evolve and change, and I think that’s awesome, and things should evolve and change, but I hope the core of what ’60 Minutes’ is always remains. I think the independence of ’60 Minutes’ has been critical.”

Cooper first began on “60 Minutes” during the 2006-2007 season. Over the years, his segments have won multiple Emmys. And on Sunday night, he delivered his final, “I’m Anderson Cooper.”

Anderson Cooper Reveals Why He’s Leaving ’60 Minutes’

Cooper has one main reason for leaving the show: his kids.

“The whole time I’ve done pieces at 60 Minutes, my full-time job has been over at CNN and still is, and it’s been really challenging to do the kind of work you need to do to,” Anderson said.

“My vacation time at CNN has been working on 60 Minutes pieces and I’ve loved it. But it’s been tough,” he added. “I always imagined like, ‘OK, when I don’t want to be in the daily-news grind, I’d love to just tell 60 Minutes stories,’ but when I had kids, the reality of having kids is different than anything you can kind of imagine.”

“I’ve got a 4-year-old and a 6-year-old, and I want to spend as much time with them as I can while they still want to spend time with me, and on those days, that clock is ticking,” he continued. “I don’t think the reality has really hit me that I’m not gonna be doing this any longer, you know, to give up something you’ve watched since you were a kid, yeah, I will miss this.”

Anderson Cooper Details What ’60 Minutes’ Has Meant To Him

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In his goodbye, Cooper opened up about all the stories he’s gotten to share, explaining that it’s been a place where he can “step into somebody else’s shoes.”

“You get to see things through their eyes and see what their struggles are and what they are facing, and you learn from that,” Cooper explained. “You never knew what you were going to get, but you were willing to go for the ride because you trusted the people on it that it was going to be a good story.”

“You’re invited into whatever it is that has brought them to be on 60 Minutes,” he added. “Sometimes it’s something wonderful they’ve done, sometimes something terrible that’s happened to them. … It feels like making a human connection with somebody, being able to ask somebody, you know, deeply personal questions and having conversations with people. It’s a privilege.”

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