Anderson Cooper has lashed out at Star Jones over her allegations that he came out as gay simply to boost viewer ratings for his show. In a segment that he was filming for Anderson Live, with the Bravo star Andy Cohen, Cooper did not hold back when it came to explaining exactly what he thought of Star – the lawyer, journalist and TV personality. In his defence, Anderson explained that he wasn’t even on the air at the time that his sexuality became public knowledge and insists that if he’d been doing it for added publicity, he’d have done it on the Anderson Cooper show, and made sure that he’d advertised the big announcement for weeks leading up to it!

TMZ have hosted the footage of Anderson saying to Andy “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… 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.’

Then Cooper got personal, saying “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.” He also revealed that he invited Star onto the show to chat but she turned him down. “I would think she would want as much publicity as possible given her penchant for wanting publicity,” he commented. Looks like Anderson had the last word there!