Anderson Cooper is still ‘mortified’ by his ‘terrible’ dancing on stage with Madonna

Originally Published: 31 AUG 23 10:10 ET

By Marianne Garvey, CNN

(CNN) — Anderson Cooper has mixed feelings about the time he briefly shared a stage with Madonna.

The CNN anchor was in the audience at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center back in 2015 when the Queen of Pop brought him on stage for a dance during her “Rebel Heart” tour performance.

While speaking with Kelly Ripa for a recent episode of her Sirius XM podcast “Let’s Talk Off Camera,” the two friends shared a laugh about Cooper’s shyness on stage.

“I’m mortified,” Cooper said. “I mean, I loved the whole idea, but I love the experience of it. I don’t love the video that exists of it, the reality.”

Madonna brought Cooper up while performing “Unapologetic Bitch,” bossing him around in front of the crowd.

“I didn’t know what the hell was going on. I was terrible. I danced terribly,” Cooper said, adding that she’s a natural on stage.

“We all watch people perform on these stages and like they make it look like it’s just so natural and normal,” he said. “Even the way they’re like dancing, running, walking down the stage. I’m like, ‘I don’t, do I skip?’”

Madonna handed Copper a banana at one point during the performance.

“I open it up and I start to peel it and eat the banana, and then all of a sudden I start lowering down on this little electronic elevator disappearing on the stage just like eating this banana,” Cooper recalled. “I don’t know. To this day, I don’t know what happened.”

Ripa was witness to the whole thing, she said, telling Cooper, “You were standing there leaning against a black wall eating the banana and you go, ‘Did you see me?’ That’s what you said. That was the first thing you said. ‘Did you see me?’ I said, ‘Oh, honey, all of New York saw you.’”