Will Success Spoil Andy Cohen?

It's been a crazy few weeks for Bravo's Andy Cohen, who normally leaves the drama to his harem of Housewives. First came Choirgate, when the telegenic TV exec turned talk-show host caught heat for taking shots at fifth-graders from Staten Island's PS 22 Chorus, whose Oscar-closing performance of "Over the Rainbow" he says "ruined" the show. "It was the worst. I was looking for a knife to stick in my eyes. It was so terrible," Cohen told MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "I literally, if I wasn’t going to go out to some parties, I would have slit them right then."

This seemingly uncharacteristic misstep from the golden boy of reality TV (which many of us quietly agreed with, even if we didn't agree with the way he went about expressing it) was greeted with strong condemnation from all corners -- ANDY COHEN WANTS TO KILL CHILDREN, screamed one headline -- from the local paper where the kids are from ("And the Oscar for Biggest Jerk goes to ...") to around the nation via the blogosphere ("Like Andy Cohen has any taste. Look at the garbage he produces"). Even Bette Midler and Perez Hilton -- the Hollywood liaison to Child Protective Services -- weighed in:

No sooner had Cohen smoothed this public-relations coup disaster over -- he apologized to the kids and then declared himself the "Jackhole of the Week" on his Bravo talk show -- he found himself at the center of another gossip-column furor for allegedly leaving his copy of "Class With the Countess" on the bookshelf and causing a scene in a bar with a blond boy toy half his age. After doing a bang-up job Saturday night hosting the GLAAD Media Awards -- where he and Tina Fey tossed around a "twink" joke or two -- the (heavily) spirited St. Louisan was later spotted at the homo hotspot Industry in Midtown, where Gatecrasher says he "beckoned" to a cute blond in his early 20s, with studs in his ears, on the other side of the room.

Gatecrasher continued:: The blond approached and Cohen -- "dressed in a sharp suit" -- lifted the Twink's shirt and "ran his hands all over [the guy's] body," while the Bravo exec's friends watched. (In his defense, who HASN'T groped a twink after tossing back a bottle or two of Ramona Singer Pinot Grigio?) (ED NOTE: Kudos to the Daily News' copy desk for deciding "twink" is a proper noun!)

As this story exploded all over the blogosphere ("THIS IS WHAT YOU GET TO DO WHEN YOU'RE AN ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY A-GAY: PRETEND LIFE IS ONE BIG STRIP CLUB WHERE YOU DON'T HAVE TO PAY," Queerty railed) -- and Bette Midler chimed in -- again (who is she, his mother?!) -- I began to hear from eyewitnesses at Industry, one of whom claims that Andy's boorish behavior extended beyond Twinkgate.

Reports one reveler, there celebrating his birthday:

After walking in "like he owned the place" -- no word whether BravoAndy's hat was strategically dipped below one eye or if his scarf was apricot -- "it was quite apparent that Andy Cohen was completely out of control. ... We were standing at the bar and Andy pushed his way in knocking me into one of my friends who subsequently spilled a drink all over himself. I didn't realize it was Andy Cohen at first and asked him what his problem was. My boyfriend stepped in and told Andy that he should wait his turn."

The birthday boy claims that Cohen then used his "Bravolebrity" to have him and his boyfriend "escorted/man-handled" out by the "abusive" bouncers, when it was obvious that Andy should have been the one to get tossed. Apparently, he said, "when you are a Bravo TV star you are not subject to the same rules of moral conduct that the rest of us are. I don't know if Andy was drunk, on drugs, or just displaying bad judgment on Saturday night, but he was way out of control. People (should) know what kind of person Andy Cohen really is."

I wasn't there, so I'm not really sure what happened. (Drinkgate?) I'm also not sure if Andy is really behaving any differently -- going out and getting a little out of control isn't really that unusual -- or if the public is just now beginning to see a fuller picture of him as a real person, beyond the happy-gay-lucky BFF to the stars we see on TV. (With greater success comes greater scrutiny.) Whenever I've run into him, Andy has always been polite, and he's very responsive to media inquiries.

The one thing I am sure of is this: Jill Zarin would trade her only child for this much press in less than a month!