When Anderson Cooper Talked About Not Wanting His Grandfather's Legacy and His $200 Million Net Worth

Most megastars have worked hard to earn the wealth they now amass, but there are also stars that would presumably be alright even without their notoriety. There are plenty of celebrities that are born into affluent families and many have also inherited the wealth to last them a lifetime.

One such star is broadcast journalist Anderson Cooper, who even wrote a book, Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty, which digs deeper into his clan and analyzes their personal lives, catastrophes, and glamor of the well-known and scandalous American dynasty.

The CNN anchor's great-great-great grandfather is Cornelius Vanderbilt. As per The U.S. Sun, he was a shipping and railroad magnate, born May 27, 1794, and evolved as the richest self-made man in America with a particular fascination for money. As a young chap, he assisted his father, who ran a boat ferrying shipment between Staten Island in New York and Manhattan, where they resided.

Vanderbilt started his own business in the late 1820s and became a thriving steamship operator. In the 1860s, he finally diverted his emphasis to the railroad industry which helped him acquire even more wealth. By the time he died, he reportedly had a net worth of more than $100 million, per History. However, the capital was subsequently utilized by Vanderbilt's heirs.

Anderson Cooper also mentioned in his book that he never learned extensively about his family when he grew up. He said that his mother, Gloria Vanderbilt, never disclosed a lot about her girlhood since she was always in a lot of pain while talking about it.

Gloria Vanderbilt, the granddaughter of the richest man in America was born in 1924 to Reginald Claypoole Vanderbilt and Gloria Mercedes Morgan. Little Gloria lost her father, who suffered liver disease due to alcoholism when she was only a child and obtained a multi-million-dollar trust fund. It commemorated the outset of her growing conglomerate and wealth.

In 1955, Vanderbilt starred on Broadway in the short-lived resurgence of William Saroyan's The Time of Your Life. From the mid-1950s to the early 1960s, she was in many TV series. Nevertheless, it was solely in the 1970s that her luck took off, thanks to her incursion into the world of style.

In the 1970s, she struck a deal with clothing manufacturer, Mohan Murjani to sell women's jeans with the Vanderbilt signature on the back pocket. As per the New York Times, her Vanderbilt by Murjani jeans shortly evolved into a $100 million per year corporation. She added other garments to her label and also added items like linens and fragrances.

As the son of railroad heiress Gloria Vanderbilt, one would assume Anderson Cooper's net worth would be worth millions upon millions in inheritance. Unfortunately, the CNN news anchor did not inherit her evaluated $200 million estate. Cooper obtained a rather small $1.5 million estate when his mother passed away at the age of 95 in 2019.

"My mother's made clear to me there's no trust fund," he told Howard Stern in 2014, before his mom's death in 2019. He justified why he was thankful there wasn't. "I don't believe in inheriting money… I think it's a curse. From the time I was growing up, if I felt like there was some pot of gold waiting for me, I don't know if I would have been so motivated."

Instead, the broadcaster has created his own pathway to wealth on his own by making a powerful net worth thanks to his flourishing career with CNN as a journalist, talk show host, and political commentator. 

Editor's Note: This article was originally published on May 27, 2023. It has seen been updated.