Longtime correspondent, who is also a CNN anchor and host, says he wants to spend more time with his family
Anderson Cooper will leave CBS News’s “60 Minutes” after the current season, a high-profile departure for the storied TV newsmagazine.
“Being a correspondent at 60 Minutes has been one of the great honors of my career,” he said Monday. “For nearly twenty years, I’ve been able to balance my jobs at CNN and CBS, but I have little kids now and I want to spend as much time with them as possible, while they still want to spend time with me.”
Cooper, 58 years old, will maintain his CNN roles including anchor of “Anderson Cooper 360,” host of “The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper” and host of the podcast “All There Is with Anderson Cooper.”
“We’re grateful to him for dedicating so much of his life to this broadcast, and understand the importance of spending more time with family,” CBS News said. “60 Minutes will be here if he ever wants to return.”
CBS parent Paramount PSKY 0.68%increase; green up pointing triangle has made a hostile bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns CNN. Warner has agreed to sell its studios and HBO Max streaming service to Netflix, leaving its cable assets as a separate company.
“60 Minutes” has faced tumult in recent months under new CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss. In December, she delayed running a segment on a prison in El Salvador where the Trump administration sent hundreds of Venezuelan migrants, including alleged gang members. That decision sparked pushback inside CBS News, a controversy that spilled into public view. The segment aired in January, with some additions.
Weiss, who took the helm at CBS News in October, is charting an overhaul to appeal to audiences who want stories in a range of formats. “Our strategy until now has been cling to the audience that remains on broadcast television,” she said in a recent town-hall meeting with staffers. “I’m here to tell you that if we stick to that strategy, we’re toast.”
Cooper is perhaps the most widely recognized “60 Minutes” correspondent—and one of the most famous faces in TV news. During his time with the show, he has reported on topics including Covid-19 patients with long-term symptoms, the drug war in Mexico and inmates in an African prison who created Grammy-winning music.
News of Cooper’s departure was earlier reported by Breaker.
Appeared in the February 17, 2026, print edition as 'Anderson Cooper Set to Leave ‘60 Minutes’ After This Season'.
Isabella Simonetti is a media reporter at The Wall Street Journal in New York. A member of The Journal's technology and media team, Isabella covers the media industry broadly, spanning sports rights, new media, cable TV and publishing.
