Anderson Cooper realised he was "different" when he was seven years old

Speaking on 'Full Circle' said: “I mean, I was probably, I don’t know, seven, when I kind of realised — I’m not sure I knew the word ‘gay’ at the time, but I realised something was up. Something was different...

“I think I really, truly accepted it — and not just accepted it, but fully embraced it and you know, came around to really loving the fact that I was gay — would probably be right after college.

“You know, I kind of struggled in my teenage years, certainly, but even a little in college… a lot of the things I wanted to do at the time, you couldn’t be gay.”

The 53-year-old star admitted he worried about the "limitations" his sexuality would put on his life because he'd be unable to follow his interest in joining the military and he feared travelling to certain countries wouldn't be safe, but he eventually decided to stop "wishing" things were different.

He said: "It felt like there were a lot of limitations on it, and it wasn’t what I envisioned for my life. Or, I imagined a family and getting married. All those things which weren’t possible at the time.

“So it took me a while to kind of fully embrace it. But then at a certain point, I think about a year out of college, I thought, I don’t want to waste any more time worrying about this and sort of wishing I was some other way.”

And now Anderson - who has a nine-month-old son, Wyatt - feels "very blessed" to be gay.

He said: "I wanna embrace who I am, and as I’ve said before, I think being gay is one of the great blessings of my life.

“Especially when you grow up, kind of feeling like you’re on the outside of things, and you’re kind of an observer of things or not necessarily in the mainstream, you see society from a slightly different view.

"And I think that can be very valuable, and can impact how you treat other people, and how you see things. So yeah, it’s enabled me to love the people that I’ve loved and have the life that I’ve had, so I’m very blessed.”