Heavy/Getty Andy Cohen.
Andy Cohen’s daughter is a history-maker. In a June 2023 interview on the “Not Skinny But Not Fat” podcast, the “Watch What Happens Live” host revealed a surprising detail about the 2022 birth of his baby girl, Lucy Eve Cohen.
While speaking with host Amanda Hirsch, Cohen, 55, revealed that the reason for the three-year age gap between his kids, Lucy, 1, and Ben, 4, was due to surrogacy laws in his home state.
Here’s what you need to know:
Andy Cohen Revealed Lucy was One of the 1st Babies in New York to Be Born Via Gestational Surrogacy
In the interview with Hirsch, Cohen revealed that his daughter was one of the first babies born via gestational surrogacy in New York. According to NY.gov, gestational surrogacy is defined as “a procedure in which the surrogate does not provide their own egg for fertilization.” The procedure was illegal in New York until February 2021, when the Child-Parent Security Act was passed.
“I helped get that law passed,” Cohen told Hirsch. “And Gov. Cuomo, he really made it happen.”
Cohen explained that it was important to him that his second child was born in the Big Apple, which is why he waited things out despite knowing that his children would have a three-year age gap between them. “I went to Albany a couple of times, and I was out there trying to get it passed,” Cohen said of the surrogacy law. “I wanted my surrogate to have the baby in New York, and so Lucy was one of the first surrogate babies born here.”
“It kind of held me up a bit, but also it was good because it gave me a lot of time to kind of get good at it with Ben,” he added.
Andy Cohen Did Not Use the Same Surrogate For Both of His Children
Because the gestational surrogacy law was not in place in New York in 2019, Cohen’s first child was born in California. At the time, he told “The Today Show” that he felt “fortunate” to be able to afford donor eggs and a surrogate to carry his son.
“I was fortunate to have the means to be able to,” he said. “It can be expensive and complicated. And I just said, ‘I’m going to do this, I’m going to try to do this,’ and I did. It’s incredible to me as I’ve now learned that surrogacy is illegal in many states, and I don’t understand why it’s illegal in New York and New Jersey, which is why I went to California. That’s where my wonderful surrogate was, who I owe so much to.”
Cohen announced the impending arrival of his first child in December 2018. “I want you to be the first to know that after many years of careful deliberation, a fair amount of prayers, and the benefit of science, if all goes according to plan in about six weeks time I’m going to become a father thanks to a wonderful surrogate who is carrying my future,” he said in an emotional message to fans on “Watch What Happens Live.”
After Lucy was born in April 2022, Cohen confirmed that he used a different surrogate to carry his daughter. In an interview on “Jeff Lewis Live,” the Bravo host revealed that his kids are “biological siblings” and that he still has three frozen embryos left.
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