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Anderson Cooper Slams Star Jones

TV anchor is "annoyed" by Jones' accusations that his coming out was ratings ploy.

The claws are out between Anderson Cooper and Star Jones!
The television anchor, who recently confirmed he was gay back in July, is lashing out at former The View co-host for alleging that he opened up about his personal life to boost ratings. 

Speaking to Bravo's Andy Cohen, Cooper discussed how he felt after revealing, after years of speculation, that he is gay. "I will say and I actually haven't mentioned this, the only thing that did kind of annoyed me and actually it annoyed my mom, who brought it up to me — Star Jones of all people."

Cooper vehemently denies the announcement was timed to give a kick to the ratings of his popular CNN show, or any of his other endeavors. "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." When Cooper came out, he wasn't on air for his CNN show or talk show.  
The silver fox then took a direct shot at Jones, calling her out for publicizing her own wedding to Al Reynolds on The View (it's rumored the incident lead to her firing from the hit morning talk show):
"As memory serves, in terms of boosting ratings, I seem to recall [Star] hocking her wedding every single day to get free products when she was on The View and I seem to recall her lying about her gastric bypass surgery and making everybody else lie about it as well. So for her to suddenly emerge out of the shadows and suddenly attack me for this, I couldn't believe it."
Cooper admitted he asked Jones to be on his talk show, but she declined. He added a final zinger, "I would think she would want as much publicity as possible given her penchant for wanting publicity."
Check out the video of Cooper's outburst on TMZ.
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(Photos from left: Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images, Michael N. Todaro/Getty Images for Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week)

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