Chris Wallace Asks Andy Cohen About Real Housewives, Are You ‘Embarrassed by What You Do’?

In a recent sit-down interview with Andy Cohen, the former Fox News personality, now working with HBO and CNN on “Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace?” didn’t seem impressed with the franchise.

He had his team compile some outrageous “Real Housewives” moments, including one where Teresa Giudice pushes Cohen. Wallace then followed it up by asking Cohen if “this is low hanging fruit we’re talking about here?”

Cohen, obviously, said that “it’s all good” and he loves the show. “I could watch those clips forever,” he beamed, per Mediaite.

After poking at Cohen’s book titles like “Superficial” and “A Deep Look at a Shallow Year,” Wallace asked him, “Are you at all embarrassed by what you do?”

This is clearly coming from someone who’s never seen Andy Cohen in action, and certainly not during those reunion shows or even his own “Watch What Happens Live.” Andy Cohen lives for this drama! He revels in it!

“No, I’m really not, because it makes so many people happy,” he shot back at Wallace. He compared it to his childhood watching soap operas, which he called “the great escape for me.”

Even as scripted soaps have faded from the television airwaves, his unscripted (ahem) soaps seem to be getting bigger and more successful by the year.

Cohen did acknowledge that the “Housewives” show can be “really confrontational” and difficult at times, but he also argued that in it’s “great moments” it’s “about being a wife and a mother and a sister and a friend and a whole lot more.”

“So yes, there’s all that and then there’s a whole lot more,” he argued. “And I think, by the way, if it was only that, it wouldn’t still be on the air and we wouldn’t have 10 going. It’s very funny too.”

As it turns out, Wallace had seen a full season of “The Real Housewives of New York City” because he personally knew several members of the cast. Cohen admitted he got a little defensive, thinking Wallace was coming at him having never even seen the show.

The two also discussed the no-drinking policy over at CNN for Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen’s New Year’s Eve coverage, which Cohen admitted they found frustrating.

“I mean, we were very annoyed, because we felt like they were saying to us, ‘You’re not capable of drinking responsibly,” he told Wallace, per TheWrap.

“Did you watch your performance from the year before?” Wallace replied. Cohen had previously admitted the rule came down because of how he was coming down on New York mayor Bill de Blasio.

Cohen defended himself, though, saying that de Blasio was the “safest” target, but Wallace asked him if maybe CNN was being reasonable in not wanting a television executive hammered on live television.

The pair also tackled the royal uproar surrounding Prince Harry’s “Spare” memoir and his accompanying press tour. Cohen wouldn’t answer if he thought Harry and Meghan Markle had “become a bore,” but he did say that he thinks “they’re cashing out” with the book, joking that “it’s expensive to live in Montecito.”

He did question if there was a way for him to discuss his brother, Prince William, without “torching the bridge.”

Cohen did get a chance to turn the tables on Wallace when the latter asked about his “WWHL” game “Plead the Fifth,” as covered by Mediaite. After explaining how it worked, Wallace asked him what questions Cohen would give him.

“Who’s the most full-of-crap person on Fox News?” Cohen asked with almost no hesitation. He followed it up with “favorite and least favorite Mike Wallace interview of all time and why?” and “what is the biggest lie someone that you’re interviewing has ever told you?”

While Wallace didn’t play completely, saying he couldn’t answer the first question, he did share that his least favorite Mike Wallace interview was with Barbra Streisand when he made her cry by telling her her mother said she didn’t have time for her.

Ultimately, the two seemed to get along fine — and Cohen fans know he can snap at you in one moment and be fine with you the next — as they discussed parenthood and their careers. Cohen even invited him to guest on “Watch What Happens Live.”

If that happens, maybe Wallace will really face a game of “Plead the Fifth.” Those questions, per Cohen, were off the top of his head, so they’d surely be even more brutal if he and his team had time to prepare.

“Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace?” airs Fridays on HBO Max, with a follow-up highlights show on CNN Sunday evenings.