Anderson Cooper emotionally signs off '60 Minutes' after 2 decades

Anderson Cooper is signing off after 20 years.

The CNN anchor, 58, bid farewell to "60 Minutes" on the newsmagazine show's May 17 episode, his last as a correspondent. After the season finale, which featured a report by Cooper about London's cab industry in the age of autonomous vehicles, CBS News released an extended farewell interview with the journalist.

Cooper grew emotional as he delivered his final "I'm Anderson Cooper." After choking up for several seconds and looking down as he held back tears, he looked straight into the camera and said the line three times, a standard for the show.

In the "overtime" segment, Cooper went down memory lane, recalling the "dangerous" and "dumb" things he's done for the show, such as diving with Nile crocodiles and being "temporarily" blinded after riding a jet ski over massive waves in Portugal

Though a montage of recognizable faces showed Cooper's interviews with Prince Harry, Lady Gaga, and the late Donald Sutherland, Cooper seemed to fondly look back on impactful sit-down interviews with "compelling characters" who are not household names, such as a Holocaust survivor and people combating child malnutrition in Niger.

"The thing is, it's never felt like work. It's felt like you're stepping into people's lives, and you're invited into people homes," Cooper explained. "You're invited into their struggles, you're invited into whatever it is that has brought them to be on '60 Minutes.'"

Anderson Cooper found it 'really challenging' to balance CNN, '60 Minutes'

At the top of the segment, Cooper opened up about how he grew up watching "60 Minutes" and knew all "the old-time CBS correspondents" by name.

"I was a weird little kid. I liked watching news. After my dad died, there was a lot of silence in my house, and we'd watch the news over dinner," Cooper said. That's why, when he was hired in 2006, Cooper "could not believe that I was on '60 Minutes.'"

But anchoring "Anderson Cooper 360°" while also filming "60 Minutes" reports, which sometimes took him across the globe, took a toll on the journalist.

"The whole time I've done pieces for '60 Minutes,' my full-time job has been over at CNN and still is. And it's been really challenging to do the kind of work you need to do to have a great '60 Minutes' piece," Cooper said.

He continued: "CNN doesn't like it if I take a lot of time off to work on a '60 Minutes' piece, so I've worked mostly for '60 Minutes' on weekends. My vacation time at CNN has been working on '60 Minutes' pieces. And I've loved it, but it's been tough."

Cooper said he realized it was time to step away from the CBS News gig to watch his sons, Wyatt and Sebastian, grow up.

"I've got a 4-year-old and a just now 6-year-old, and I want to spend as much time with them as I can while they still want to spend time with me," Cooper said. "And those days, that clock is ticking, I think."

"I hope '60 Minutes' is around for when my kids grow up and have kids of their own, and they can watch it with their kids," he added.

Anderson Cooper among several CBS News departures

Cooper, who joined "60 Minutes" in 2006, announced his exit as a correspondent in February, saying he needs more time with his kids. He is remaining in his anchor role at CNN.

In a February statement, CBS said, "we're grateful to [Cooper] for dedicating so much of his life to this broadcast, and understand the importance of spending more time with family," adding, "'60 Minutes' will be here if he ever wants to return."

Cooper's exit was announced during a tumultuous time for CBS News, where Bari Weiss took over as editor-in-chief in October. The hire by Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison drew scrutiny given that Weiss, a former New York Times opinion writer and founder of The Free Press, had no prior experience in broadcast news.

In December, Weiss came under fire over her decision to pull a "60 Minutes" segment on the notorious El Salvador prison CECOT, just hours before it was scheduled to air. CBS said the piece needed additional reporting, and it ultimately aired the following month.

Amid the "60 Minutes" controversy, Nikki Glaser, while hosting January's Golden Globe Awards on CBS, dubbed CBS News "America's newest place to see B.S. news."

CBS has also undergone several shake-ups since Weiss' hiring, including the exits of Maurice DuBois and John Dickerson from "CBS Evening News." Tony Dokoupil took over as anchor of the evening newscast in January.

Contributing: Melina Khan, USA TODAY