The TV personality also reflected on eloping with her husband at 25.
Kelly Ripa is gushing over her husband. ET's Rachel Smith spoke with the 51-year-old morning show host ahead of the release of her new book and she explained why she dedicated Live Wire to her husband, Mark Consuelos.
"I think of this book really as a love letter to Mark. That’s why I dedicated the book to him, because he really has walked through most of my adult life with me," she tells ET. "He really is such a great husband, he's a great father, he's a great guy, he's a great friend. That's the greatest thing he is, a great friend. That's the thing, if you have him as a friend, you've hit the jackpot."
Ripa and Consuelos eloped in 1996, when they were just 25. They went on to have three children: Michael, 25, Lola, 21, and Joaquin, 19.
"We have a 25-year-old. If he ran off to Vegas and eloped, we would punish him," Ripa jokes. "We would find him and lock him in his room."
Even so, against all odds, their marriage has stood the test of time.
"It's one of those things that, on paper, should not have worked out. We should not have worked out, but something about the two of us [made it work]," Ripa says. "I think it's our mutual respect and mutual admiration. We don't compete with each other, we don't have egos where the other person is concerned, we have each other's back. That's a unique thing, I think, in this industry... We really are just always there for each other."
That fact was very clear in 1997, when, six months after giving birth to her first child, Ripa passed out while having sex with Consuelos, an incident she recounts in her book.
"Intimacy can be [difficult] for women, particularly after they have had a baby, and I am no different," Ripa tells ET. "That was very, very difficult. Really what it portrays is that my husband --- and keep in mind he was 27 years old... gave me the support I needed before there was language about supporting post-natal women and what their bodies may be going through."
It's stories like that, which have both humor and a deeper meaning, that Ripa wanted to share in Live Wire.
"I started recounting moments of my life that were meant to be funny and humorous and all of that, which 99 percent of the book is, some of it is gritty and more on the serious side," she tells ET. "...This seems like funny stories that people can digest easily. There's a little something for everybody."
Live Wire is out now.
RELATED CONTENT:
