Anderson Cooper Tears Up as He Reflects on Families Who ‘Never Move On’ After Kids Killed in School Shootings
“They can’t surrender the rooms, because you surrender the rooms, and that’s just another piece of their kid that’s gone,” explains Steve Hartman, who has been documenting the rooms of children murdered in school shootings. Many have been untouched for years.… pic.twitter.com/42PBnSHMmE
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) November 24, 2025
Anderson Cooper was brought to tears during a CBS 60 Minutes interview about a long-running project documenting the preserved bedrooms of children killed in school shootings in a raw moment as he discussed the emotional toll carried by families long after the headlines fade.
The exchange came as Cooper spoke with the network’s veteran correspondent Steve Hartman for the upcoming Netflix documentary All the Empty Rooms, which follows Hartman and photographer Lou Bopp as they visit the bedrooms left behind by eight children killed in shootings across the country.
For the families, these rooms remain points of gravity and untouched spaces, where memory sits in place of a lost child.
“It’s such a reminder that while everybody else moves on from what is a story to them, the families never move on,” Cooper said, his voice tightening.
Hartman noted that the parents who opened their doors did so out of frustration with how quickly national attention dissipates, replying: “That’s part of the reason the families did agree because it’s very frustrating for them when the country moves on. And they certainly haven’t moved on and will never move on.”
The weight of that responsibility appeared to overwhelm Cooper as he tried to explain the burden parents feel.
“I think there’s such weight in for these parents in being the holders of the memory, that they are the only ones who remember – excuse me,” he said, pausing as he choked up and became unable to speak.
“What are you thinking about?” Hartman asked.
“Whew,” Cooper exhaled. “I’ve been in a lot of these rooms, as well, and there’s such sadness in being the last ones left to remember everything about this child.”
Hartman added that for many families, the rooms are the last physical space tethered to a life cut short: “You surrender the rooms and that’s just another piece of their kid that’s gone.”
The documentary, out later this year, traces that tension for families between preserving a room and trying to rebuild a life lost to gun violence.
Watch above via CBS.
