Anderson Cooper shared the end of his son’s missing stuffed animal saga.
Appearing on an episode of Live with Kelly and Mark on Tuesday, the CNN host, 56, updated Mark Consuelos, 52, on son Wyatt’s toy, Brown Bear, who was missing during his last appearance on the daytime show in July.
“Last I was on the show, I put out an appeal to the nation — an APB, for my son’s Brown Bear — and you have the kindest, nicest viewers in the world,” the father of two shared.
“This was my son’s beloved Brown Bear that he’s had since he was born. And it went missing, he couldn’t find it. Checked everywhere for it for weeks and weeks and weeks. I put out an appeal in desperation. Within a few hours — within minutes! — I start getting DMs from around the world. From people literally around the world,” Cooper continued.
The journalist noted that after doing research and being unable to find it on his own, “Your viewers, within an hour, found three of them on Etsy.”
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“Now, first of all, I didn’t know what Etsy was. I knew eBay, I didn’t know Etsy. They found one — your social media person, Andrea, found one on Etsy in Australia. Another viewer found one on Etsy in London, I think. And then one from somewhere else around the world. And I quickly, immediately, went on Etsy and got all of them,” he laughed.
What Cooper wasn’t expecting at that point was for the original missing bear to resurface.
“I was driving in the car one day up to Connecticut. And we had searched — I had searched everywhere. I had spent weeks searching. I had driven up to Connecticut and searched the lawn of my house, looking for this bear. I had gone on a trail in the forest with my son. I went on an ATV over the trail, looking for this thing. I had searched for months!” he recalled.
“And Benjamin, my partner in parenthood, he had searched the car and we divided up responsibilities as people do. So, weeks go by, these things haven’t arrived yet. I’m driving up to Connecticut with the kids and saying, ‘Oh the bear’s coming. Their cousins are coming, the bear’s brothers are coming to visit.’ And I happen to look down. And there is the original bear.”
Cooper noted that Maisani, with whom he also shares 19-month-old son Sebastian Luke, “swore he searched the car up and down.”
“Of course I was happy I found it. But I can use this against him for the rest of his life. Every time there’s an argument, I’ll be like, ‘Well, what about the bear…,'” Cooper joked.
“In Benjamin’s defense, this is easy, this could blend in,” Kelly Ripa chimed in.
“Yes, but if you say you searched the car, I would assume under the front seat would be the most obvious place to look,” Cooper laughed. “Anyway, I just want to show you a picture of the old bear and the new bear side by side.”
Showing the distinct difference between the two, Cooper said, “That’s the parable. To me, this is a parable of love. This is what love does to you.”
“Love chews your ears, it mats your fur, it smushes your nose, it makes you dirty and your fur all matted. This is the price of love and yet now they’re together, and I’m very happy, and Wyatt is too,” he concluded.