At the same time, Cohen would make the rounds of TV chat shows, committing random culture punditry. They were doing it all wrong! Why should they alternately hide and give away all this content?
He began hosting the televised reunions/brawls that air in the aftermath of the most popular Bravo shows. And he was and is good at it, asking the often wounded reality folk hard questions while not appearing smug. ("The Real Housewives of New Jersey" reunion shows -- a two-parter, as befits a show that drew 3.5 million viewers to the first airing of its finale -- will air this Tuesday and Thursday.)
Now the logical evolution: Cohen's once-a-week live show, "Watch What Happens," will begin airing July 16. He has given himself the midnight slot. "It'll be me and a couple Bravo-lebrities and maybe a real 'lebrity taking phone calls and e-mails and tweets from Bravo fanatics live at midnight. And we're going to be sipping cocktails," he said.
The show will be produced by . . . Michael Davies of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire."
"It's going to feel like it cost five dollars, and it cost a little over five dollars but only a little over five dollars," Cohen said.
Recently, Bravo TV star Kathy Griffin started making jokes onstage about Cohen and his (mildly!) wandering eye. "Ultimately, she sees pop culture and puts it through her filter and if I somehow became part of that filter, I'll take it, you know?" he said.
And last Christmas, stealthily taken pictures of Cohen with actor Daniel Craig in St. Bart's, seaside and attractively be-swimsuited, showed up on the gossip blogs.
"Well, look," Cohen said, "I think the definition of celebrity -- in the age of Facebook and 18 million other tweets? Celebrity is relative."
But where you wouldn't have seen those pics is Cohen's blog. "I didn't talk about those pictures or what I did on that trip, nor would I," he said. "As much as I do over-share about ridiculous things, there are a lot of things I don't talk about."
But where does all this growing 'lebrity take him? "I don't know. It's really too soon to tell. At this moment, people really want to talk to me about the 'Housewives.' "
--
Reality stars
Oh, "Housewives." Has anything so seemingly upmarket ever been so down-market? The network has recently been mildly buffeted -- or buoyed? -- by the scandalous alleged secret history of one of its Housewives. New Jersey cast member Danielle Staub has an ex-husband who went to Star and said she had been a prostitute, the former lady of a Colombian cocaine dealer and had done five years of probation.
