Andy Cohen Defends $30-An-Hour Babysitter Pay After Jeff Lewis Calls It "Cheap"

Andy Cohen is learning that babysitter pay is one of those topics nobody escapes unscathed. On Monday’s episode of SiriusXM’s“Andy Cohen Live,”the Watch What Happens Live host revealed he pays $30 an hour to watch his two kids, Ben, 7, and Lucy Eve, 4. Jeff Lewis, filling in as co-host, wasted zero time calling it out.“Cheap to me, especially from someone with your money,”Lewis said, revealing he pays his own sitter $37 an hour for his 9-year-old daughter. Cohen pushed back, noting he’d paid $70 for a recent two-hour-and-fifteen-minute job and said he’d checked with friends, who told him his rate was comparable.

The story didn’t end at the radio studio. Asked Tuesday at the Broadcasting + Cable Hall of Fame Awards whether he felt like a“cheapskate,”Cohen admitted the on-air conversation got to him.“I wasn’t till we started talking about it on the radio. You’re making me feel like one,”he said, adding that he now plans to ask more people about going rates. It’s a rare moment of a celebrity doing exactly what the rest of us do after a friend raises an eyebrow at our choices: quietly gathering intel and second-guessing everything.

All jokes aside, childcare costs hit every household differently, and $30 an hour is a real number in plenty of markets. The drama isn’t really about the dollar amount. It’s about the fact that a friend said it out loud, on the radio, and now everyone has an opinion. So we want yours. What’s a fair hourly rate for babysitting where you live?