In this week’s cover story “People,” Kelly Ripa ex “Live!” opened up about his relationship with! Co-host Regis Philbin discussing his new book, “Live Wire: Long-Winded Short Stories.”
The 51-year-old television host, who worked with Philbin from 2001 to 2011, replacing Kathie Lee Gifford, told “People” that the pages about his dynamic with Philbin made it “the hardest chapter” for him to write.
“There were good and bad days,” she said of the decade she co-hosted “Live! with Regis and Kelly.” “I don’t want to feel like I’m condemning anyone or that I I am disrespectful But I also want people to know it wasn’t easy. It took years to earn my place there and earn the things that the men I work with are regularly taken for granted. Including an office and a place to store my computer.”
Ripa joined the daytime talk show in 2001, when Lee Gifford left after 15 years co-hosting with Philbin.
“The biggest misconception is that it all went smoothly,” Ripa says. “People think that I just came one day and I was given a job and I lived happily ever after and everything is perfect now. But that never happens.”
Ripa’s agent alerted her what would happen after she co-hosted three times, each time being told that the show was not looking for a permanent co-host. Ripa says she was told that “they want you to know who your boss is.”
“It was very ominous, and it didn’t feel good,” she said.
She was also told not to “bring a crew”, so she brought in exactly two people for hair and makeup.
“It was not uncommon to show up with people on a television show,” she said.
Before taking to the stage to begin his time with Philbin, he turned to executive producer Michael Gelman in front of him and said, “Uh-oh, Gelman, it’s a crew.”
“I felt terrible,” Ripa said. “He was probably trying to be funny, but at the same time it felt like a hoax. I understand that maybe he didn’t want a co-host, but the network wanted me to be a co-host and I didn’t think I should. That opportunity should be missed. I don’t think it was fair to him. But it was not fair to me either.”
Ripa also recalled fond memories of her co-hosts, such as a dinner party she attended where she “never laughed so hard,” and other moments “outside the camera and out of that building.”
In the end, Ripa credited Philbin as “the world’s best storyteller” and hoped that he would become “one tenth as good” as he was.
Philbin passed away in 2020 at the age of 88, and Ripa is now “Live! With Kelly and Ryan” with Ryan Seacrest.
