Anderson Cooper: 'Gay Announcement Was No Ratings Ploy'

Anderson Cooper was taping a segment of Anderson Live with Andy Cohen (it airs today), when the Bravo bigshot asked him if he did it for more publicity. Well this got Coop all irate, and he laid down his own TRUTH:

"I will say and I actually haven't mentioned this, the only thing that did kind of annoy me and actually it annoyed my mom who brought it up to me, Star Jones of all people. I haven't thought about Star Jones in I don't know how long. I was unaware she was even on TV still ... but she apparently shows up on a morning show...Out of the blue Star Jones ... said this was a ratings ploy by me to boost ratings."

Coop continued by stating: "If I was wanting to boost ratings, I would have waited to announce it on 'A Very Special Episode' that would have been promo'd for weeks and weeks and there would have been commercials ... 'Anderson's Huge Announcement.'"

The show airs today, but luckily TMZ tipped us off and they have an exclusive clip.