The TV personality is celebrating 20 years as co-host of 'Live.'
Kelly Ripa is still getting used to doing everything via Zoom. The 50-year-old Live With Kelly and Ryan co-host appeared on Wednesday's episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and joked about the intimacy of video chatting from the home she shares with her husband of more than 20 years, Mark Consuelos.
"I love being with you even if it's from a strange setup in my bedroom," Ripa told Fallon at the beginning of her interview. "I feel like this is as close to infidelity as I will ever be."
While many hoped that the COVID-19 pandemic would be a thing of the past in 2021, along with the necessity of Zoom calls, Ripa expressed disappointment that the new year hasn't been all that different from 2020.
"I think I thought 2021 would be like the sequence in The Wizard of Oz where they're in black and white and then the house lands and she opens the door and everything's in color. I think I thought 2021 would happen and then, like, it's over, we can all come outside, guys, and go play in the park," Ripa said. "[But] it's pretty much the same."
Even with the pandemic, Ripa and her co-host, Ryan Seacrest, have continued making their morning show. This year, in fact, marks Ripa's 20-year anniversary of hosting Live.
"I keep thinking it's only been three years. I don't understand the big deal," Ripa said with a laugh, before revealing how she landed her longrunning gig in the first place.
"I actually think the fact that I did not have any anticipation about getting that job at all actually worked greatly to my advantage, because I wasn't going after it," she explained. "I was asked to fill in for a a fill-in host at the last minute, so it took any stakes or any nervousness that I probably would have had away."
Though she didn't have nerves about the work itself, Ripa almost turned down the job out of concern that an exciting piece of news would be discovered on-air.
"My only concern was that I was very early pregnant with our daughter, Lola, and nobody knew. Nobody knew. Mark and I knew and nobody else knew," said Ripa, who now shares three children -- Michael, 23, Lola, 19, and Joaquin, 17 -- with Consuelos.
"They said, 'There's going to be a psychic and she's going to give you a reading if you don't mind because we're doing psychic week,'" Ripa recalled. "I said to Mark, 'I've got to cancel, I can't do this.' He goes, 'Oh, what, you think a psychic is going to figure out you're pregnant?'"
"I go, 'Well, what if she does? Isn't that what psychics do?'" Ripa continued. "She figured out I was pregnant in three seconds."
Watch the video below for more on Ripa and Consuelos' romance.
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