Anderson Cooper DESTROYS Star Jones -- Gay Announcement Was No Ratings Ploy

Anderson Cooper just BLASTED Star Jones ... claiming the former "View" host was talking out of her lying, irrelevant ass when she claimed Anderson's gay announcement was a ratings ploy.

Cooper was shooting a segment of "Anderson Live" with Bravo bigshot Andy Cohen ... when Cohen asked A.C. if he felt any different after coming out publicly back in July.

That's when Anderson dropped the truth bomb:

"I will say and I actually haven't mentioned this, the only thing that did kind of annoy me and actually it annoyed my mom who brought it up to me, Star Jones of all people."

He continued, "I haven't thought about Star Jones in I don't know how long. I was unaware she was even on TV still ... but she apparently shows up on a morning show."

"Out of the blue Star Jones ... said this was a ratings ploy by me to boost ratings."

On the show, which airs today, Cooper says Jones couldn't have been more wrong -- 'cause he was on assignment in Africa when he decided to quietly make the announcement in an email to a journalist friend, who posted the letter online.

"If I was wanting to boost ratings, I would have waited to announce it on 'A Very Special Episode' that would have been promo'd for weeks and weeks and there would have been commercials ... 'Anderson's Huge Announcement.'"

"As memory serves, in terms of boosting ratings, I seem to recall [Star] hocking her wedding every single day to get free products when she was on 'The View' and I seem to recall her lying about her gastric bypass surgery and making everybody else lie about it as well. So for her to suddenly emerge out of the shadows and suddenly attack me for this, I couldn't believe it."

Cooper says he invited Star to his show to discuss her comments, but she turned him down.

"I would think she would want as much publicity as possible given her penchant for wanting publicity."