Anderson Cooper On What It Was Like Growing Up With Mom Gloria Vanderbilt (VIDEO)

For Anderson Cooper, growing up with Gloria Vanderbilt as a mom was totally normal.

Except, of course, that women wearing her denim line across America had her name emblazoned across their backsides.

In a preview video for his upcoming eponymous daytime talk show (set to debut September 12), Anderson Cooper answers a Twitter follower's question: "What was it like growing up with a famous fashion designer as a mother?"

Well, Anderson says, it was pretty normal. Until she got famous:

"I didn't really realize my mom was famous until probably when I started to be a teenager and started to suddenly see her name on people's butts. That was a little strange. My brother and I actually used to have a game where we would count how many people we saw wearing her name when that whole thing first started."

That was back in 1976, when Cooper's mom put her storied name on the back pocket of a new line of denim and sold the form-fitting Gloria Vanderbilt Jeans in awesome commercials like the one below ("a nice snug hug makes every girl feel beautiful!")

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Comments

[starrianna]

10:21 PM on 08/27/2011

One word: Fabulous

[lmab]

06:23 PM on 07/11/2011

Touching story.

[cheikp23]

04:25 PM on 07/11/2011

I had no idea that Anderson's mom is Gloria Vanderbilt!

[smmrselysummers]

03:49 PM on 07/11/2011

And they were really comfortable jeans. I think about the pair I had back then from time to time. Wish I had them still.

[Grandma Koolfinger]

12:23 PM on 07/11/2011

Andy seems a little off his feed after he got knocked around in Egypt.

[Tribal Knowledge]

10:21 AM on 07/11/2011

Anderson owes his career and all his fame to his big name mom. He has, however, also done a lot with the privilege he has been given, imho.

[holyghostie]

07:10 AM on 07/11/2011

You know Anderson wore a pair of Sassoon's back in the day.

[starrianna]

10:21 PM on 08/27/2011

My sister wore them in the 80s and they turned her butt blue for a week.

[anastasiabeaverhousen]

09:23 PM on 07/10/2011

I'm really surprised how many people didn't know his mom was GV. He has talked about it in interviews.....how funny it was the first time she realized they needed a car to transport the family around town and she came home with a 2door Camaro. Totally impractical and he made it sound endearing yet hysterically funny!

[Cacey]

12:52 PM on 07/10/2011

If one has the chance to read a biography of Gloria Vanderbuilt, they will be amazed at how a little girl growing up in so incredibly disfunctional family, finally got her act together and lived a fairly normal life given the wealth and history surrounding her and raised an amazingly normal son. She and Jackie O are real credits to motherhood.

[COPESTIR3]

11:07 AM on 07/10/2011

I enjoy how he does not use her to cash in. He has made his own way, as she. They must be very proud of one another.

[wzjussayin]

10:56 AM on 07/10/2011

Sounds to me like G.V. was more interested in raising her children, and really designing, and really creating, and really living - than she was in bathing in her own fame.

[jsgaetano]

12:57 AM on 07/10/2011

Wow, I didn't know she was his mom.

[Rheinbear]

11:41 PM on 07/09/2011

No one can say he trades on his Mom's name. There are a lot of surprised people here tonite.

[Shikamaru]

12:11 PM on 07/11/2011

it's news to me

[IslandGyal]

05:59 PM on 07/09/2011

What planet have I been living on, as I had no clue about this relationship.

[nycagnes]

12:08 AM on 07/09/2011

I loved those jeans. During the late seventies while going to school I used to work in a clothing/jean store. I used to own every color of Vanderbilt jeans.