Anderson Cooper reveals brother Carter's suicide led him to seek out a job where he confronts death daily and that he and mom Gloria Vanderbilt stopped celebrating Christmas in the wake of his death

Anderson Cooper opened up about the suicide of his older brother in an emotional new interview.

Carter Cooper was 23 years old when he jumped to his death off the balcony of his mother Gloria Vanderbilt's apartment while she looked on in New York City. 

The tragedy tore apart Cooper and his mother, and his inability to talk about his brother's death play a part in his future career decisions he explained, saying; 'I started going overseas and going to places where life and death was very real and where people were suffering tremendous loses. 

'Hearing their stories and hearing people talk about it sort of helped me to get to a place where I could talk about it, I think.'

Vanderbilt meanwhile revealed that she and Cooper have not celebrated Christmas since 1988, the year the Carter took his life.

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Difficult time: Anderson Cooper (above with mother Gloira in 2004) talked about the 1988 suicide of his brother Carter Cooper in an emotional new interview

Final moments: Carter (left with friends at Limelight in 1984)  jumped of the balcony of his mother Gloria Vanderbilt's apartment while she stood nearby trying to talk him off the ledge

'Well, I remember the first Christmas we were together after it happened - cause he died July 22 - and we went to the movies,' said Vanderbilt, 92, in an interview with People. 

'And then we went to the automat, and from then on we've never done anything about Christmas.'

She later got emotional when she began speaking about hearing other people talking about her son, fighting back tears as she said; 'Some people who knew Carter will start to talk about him and then say, "Oh, I'm sorry."

'And I say, "No, I love to talk about him. More, more, more." Because that brings him alive and it brings him closer and it means that he hasn't been forgotten.'

She also said that she still often dreams about her son.

Carter had graduated Princeton and was working as an editor for the history magazine American Heritage at the time of his death.

He had begun seeing a therapist in the months before and on the day in question showed up at his mother's apartment and spent most of the day sleeping until early that evening.

At around 7pm he woke up and went in to see his mother, repeatedly asking her; 'What's going on?' 

He then went out on the terrace and sat on the ledge with his feet dangling over the edge as his mother helplessly stood by watching her son.

Vanderbilt said at one point he asked her what the number of his therapist was and when she could not remember told her 'F*** you" before reciting it himself and then going over the edge.

'He reached out to me at the end,' Vanderbilt told People during a previous interview.

'Then he went over, hanging there on the wall, like on a bar in a gymnasium. I said, "Carter, come back," and for a minute I thought he'd swing back up. But he let go.'

Soon after she began to think that his death was due to some medication he was taking in the form of an asthma inhaler. 

'I was there when he did it, and Carter wasn't himself,' she said.  'It was as if the medication had snapped him into another dimension.'

Opening up: Cooper (above with his mother at Carter's funeral) said he had difficulty talking about what happened but that going overseas where people suffer 'tremendous losses' helped him

Moving on: Vanderbilt (above with Cooper and Carter at their apartment in 1976) said that she and Cooper went to the movies that Christmas and have not celebrated the holiday since

Vanderbilt also revealed just a few years ago while being interviewed by her son on his eponymous daytime talk show that she immediately considered killing herself after Carter went over the balcony. 

'There was a moment when I thought I was going to jump over after him,' she told Cooper.

'I thought of you and it stopped me.' 

She later said of the tragedy; 'You never, ever get over it, but you learn to live with it.' 

Cooper was 21 and in Washington DC at the time, and wrote about finding out his brother had taken his life previously in the September 2003 issue of Details.

Love: Vanderbilt with the father of her sons Anderson and Carter, Wyatt Cooper

'You always hear tales about brothers who can feel each other's pain. This isn't one of them, wrote Cooper, 48, at the beginning of his piece.

'When my brother died, I didn't feel a thing.'

He wrote about how difficult it was to return home and sleep in his room, which the balcony his brother jumped off of was connected to the in the apartment.

He closed by saying; My brother is buried next to my dad. I like to think of them together.

'I used to think suicide was a conscious act. A plan made, then carried out. I know now it's not always like that.

'My brother was a sweet young man who wanted to be in control. In the end, he simply wasn't. None of us are. We all dangle from a very delicate thread.'

In his current interview with People, Cooper says of Carter; 'I think it's hard for me to imagine that he would be 50. It's stunning for me to think of how long ago it was that he died, that I've lived more of my life without him than I lived with him. That's incomprehensible to me. He's forever frozen in time."

'When we were growing up, I used to imagine us being adults and being closer when we were adults and having families and kind of getting to know each other in a new way, and we never had that opportunity.'

Carter's death came a decade after the death of his father and Vanderbilt's fourth husband Wyat Cooper. 

'That moment reset the clock of our lives. I think back to the person I was, the boy who had a mother, a father, a brother; the boy who was funny and not afraid to curl up in his father's lap and show affection and vulnerability,' said Cooper.

'I think back to that person and know I am a fraction of who I once was, who I was meant to be.' 

Too hard: Vanderbilt (above with her sons in March 1976) also said in an interview Copper a few years ago that she considered committing suicide right after her son died

Cooper also revealed that after the death his mother would frequently talk about what happened to cope with the situation, while he preferred to stay silent.

He left to go back to school a month later, and left his mother a note that said 'From now on we are partners.'

Cooper said of the note; 'I did feel we were partners and still do, now more than ever.'

His mother agreed, and while she is glad she and Cooper remain so close, she still struggles with what she lost. 

'I have heard it said that the greatest loss a human being can experience is the loss of a child. This is true,' said Vanderbilt.

'It doesn't just change you, it demolishes you. The rest of your life is spent on another level. Is the pain less? No, just different.

'It is there forever, until the day you die.' 

At the time of Carter's suicide Vanderbilt had just recently found massive success as a designer and writer, most notably with her line of designer jeans. 

Vanderbilt has also released five memoirs and three novels since 1979, with her sixth memoir arriving in the form of this new documentary with her son, who based it off correspondences between himself and his mother over the course of the last year about her life.

Cooper describes his mother as 'interesting and unconventional' while pointing how happy he is the two have gotten closer over the past year and that in the end he managed to have some unique experiences growing up as 'few people's moms take them to Studio 54 when they're 11.'

The exchanges between the two have also been put into the book they coauthored, The Rainbow Comes and Goes.

It will be released next week, and Cooper said of the experience; 'The process of writing this book has been life changing. I realized how similar I am to my mom.