Andy Cohen Won't Return to Miss Universe: I Could Be Arrested

It's being held in Russia this year, and the former co-host is gay
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 15, 2013 9:19 AM CDT
Andy Cohen Won't Return to Miss Universe: I Could Be Arrested
Andy Cohen speaks on stage at the 2013 CFDA Fashion Awards at Alice Tully Hall on Monday, June 3, 2013 in New York.   (Photo by Brad Barket/Invision/AP)

Missing from this year's Miss Universe pageant: regular co-host Andy Cohen. The competition is being held in Russia on Nov. 9, and the country's anti-gay laws "make it unsafe for the gays who live there and gays coming to work or visit," Cohen tells E!'s Giuliana Rancic (who has co-hosted with him the past two years). He adds that he "didn't feel right as a gay man stepping foot into Russia," considering "the law is that anyone under suspicion of homosexuality can be arrested." A Change.org petition with nearly 24,000 supporters so far is asking the Miss Universe organization to hold the pageant elsewhere. (More Miss Universe stories.)

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