Anderson Cooper's Podcast Series Elevates Our Approach to Grief

COMMENTARY

And so, the question of space and separation rests with us. We like to think the walls are impenetrable, that life and death are hermetically separated, and that the living and the dead never need cross paths. But what if, in reality, that’s all they ever do?

-Delphine Horvilleur, author of Living with Our Dead¹

Anderson Cooper is no stranger to grief. The journalist and CNN anchor lost his father to cardiac disease when he was just 10, his brother to suicide when he was 21, and his mother, Gloria Vanderbilt, to cancer in 2019. In the aftermath of his mother’s death, as he sorted through her lifetime of belongings, Cooper began his podcast on grief, “All There Is.”

Cooper quickly discovered that grieving for his mother reopened the wounds to grieving for his father and brother—feelings he says he suppressed and never let himself experience. Still, they influenced him—he has lived a hectic life, reporting on war and natural disasters, being witness to the suffering of others, a livelihood he felt was fueled by his own losses.

In the podcast series, Cooper invites celebrity guests to share their experiences with grief. The listener hears from Stephen Colbert, who lost his father and 2 brothers in a plane crash. Tyler Perry, like Cooper, continues to grieve for his mother. President Joseph Biden talks about losing his first wife and a baby daughter in a car accident, and then later losing his adult son, Beau, to a brain tumor. Cooper's final interview of the third season was conducted from Los Angeles, where he was reporting on the wild fires, and his guest was author Doris Kearns Goodwin, who talked about the death of her husband. The episodes are heartfelt and raw.

“The day my father died, the child I was disappeared,” Cooper said, “washed away by the turn of the tide. From time to time, I still catch glimpses of that boy swimming through warm water towards his dad in a crystal blue pool. His father smiles as the boy wraps his arms and legs around him and holds them tight. A seashell wind chime gently blows in the breeze. He can hear waves crashing somewhere through the hedges and over the dunes. Many times, I've wished I had a mark, a scar, a missing limb, something children could have pointed at, which adults could tell them not to stare. At least then I wouldn't have been expected to smile and mingle, meet and greet. They would have seen. They would have known that, like a broken locket, I have only half a heart.”

Cooper invited his listeners to call, promising to listen to all the messages, and thousands took him up on this offer—he played some of their messages on the podcast. There is a space here for mourning and remembrance, but he also played messages from a few individuals who wanted to say good riddance to someone who made their life difficult. It is a public airing of the most private of feelings of catharsis. Cooper set up an online grief community for those who want more participation.

As a psychiatrist, I often feel that so much of my work is about sitting with grief. I have had many patients who have experienced significant losses during treatment. Some of these deaths are expected—the deaths of elderly parents with terminal diseases, for example—but there have also been accidents, suicides, overdoses, murders, and unexpected cardiac events. Sometimes grief is a reason for seeking care, but more often it is something that happens when you know anyone for long enough.

People carry their losses for decades and loss is a part of nearly every person’s story. And as Cooper discovered when he lost his elderly mother, 1 loss excavates the pain of all those who have died before. This is the case for my patients, and in listening to their sorrow, I quietly revisit my own losses. It can be exhausting work.

It is difficult when people approach the ages their parents were at death. There is an anxiety, a quiet fear that death will come for them too, and relief when one passes that age. Cooper poignantly talks about how it was not until he turned 51 that he could entertain becoming a parent—he now has 2 sons and sings them the same lullaby his father sang to him. He tells listeners about a passage his mother highlighted in a book about losing a parent during childhood, as her sons did—the child carries a story of being different and alone, and Cooper notes that sharing his pain so publicly has been helpful to him.

Traditionally, religion has given people rituals and community to help endure the anguish of grief. Religion may also provide answers as to the hereafter, and often a belief that loved ones will be re-joined can be comforting. Still, our religious affiliations are declining; 70% of Americans belonged to a church, synagogue, or mosque in 1999; in 2021, only 47% belonged.²

Psychiatry has a difficult relationship with grief—we talk about complicated or prolonged grief, and in DSM-5, we have put parameters on when to call it a disorder. We look for sharp lines to give us direction in distinguishing the normal from the not normal. Is it a kindness to do this—to say that this is a problem worthy of psychiatric attention, and perhaps more importantly of insurance reimbursement so that patients can afford to get care? Or is creating pathology out of what is essentially a part of normal humanity making individuals feel even more different? Or does it matter? We do not typically turn away those who come to our doors and identify themselves as patients.

“Anger is an armor against how we actually feel,” Stephen Colbert said on the episode that aired on December 27, 2023. “But if you can share your stories and if you can address your grief through that storytelling, as you're saying and hearing from other people, then that turns the cave into a tunnel, and there's some way to get on the other side. It adds oxygen to your life. It doesn't cut you off. It opens you up. And I think people are afraid to talk about grief because they think it's a trap of depression or something like that. When in fact, grief is a doorway to another you because you're going to be a different person on the other side of it.”

“All There Is” fills a void—it gives a language and permission to grief in a way I have not heard before. For those who cannot find words or tears for their own losses, Cooper provides a voice. If the dapper, tucked-in Cooper can weep and talk about conversations he has with the little boy he once was, well, perhaps everyone else can as well. And for those who cannot cry for themselves, there is still the release of being able to cry for Anderson.

Dr Miller is a clinical psychiatrist and writer in Baltimore. She is on the faculty at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

References

1. Horvilleur D. Living with Our Dead: On Loss and Consolation. Europa Compass; 2024.

2. Jones JM. U.S. church membership falls below majority for first time. Gallup. March 29, 2021. Accessed February 19, 2025. https://news.gallup.com/poll/341963/church-membership-falls-below-majority-first-time.aspx