Andy Cohen Credits Kelly Ripa with Saving His Life from Skin Cancer: 'It Was Malignant Melanoma'
Andy Cohen has Kelly Ripa to thank for saving his life.
The Watch What Happens Live host, 51, opened up about his brush with skin cancer during his appearance on Jenny McCarthy‘s SiriusXM radio show on Friday, sharing that Ripa, 49, was the one who urged him to see a doctor after spotting a suspicious speck on his face at a party.
“There was a dot on my lip that I had for a while that I was not paying attention to,” he recalled, explaining that he never bothered with the blemish until bumping into Ripa and her husband, Mark Consuelos, at an art opening for Gloria Vanderbilt one night.
“Kelly came up to me and goes, ‘What’s happening with your lip?'” Cohen continued. “She goes, ‘Get that checked out today. That is skin cancer.'”
The Real Housewives producer said he got a consultation with a doctor soon after the conversation.
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“I went and got it checked out,” he remembered. “It was malignant melanoma.”
Melanoma is the most serious type of skin cancer, according to the Mayo Clinic. Exposure to ultraviolet radiation from sunlight or tanning lamps can increase the risk of developing melanoma.
Since having surgery on his lip to have the spot removed, Cohen said he’s been “extra careful” about spending time in the sun and goes to his dermatologist twice a year for a full-body check for skin cancer.
The Bravo star — who was seen with two large bandages covering his forehead during the interview — also mentioned that he just got something “hacked off” his face, though he did not go into detail about the procedure.
In 2017, Cohen dropped in on Live with Kelly to thank Ripa for prompting him to see a dermatologist.
“I want to say, by the way, that I have to shout you out for something that you don’t know I’m going to shout you out for. But I had this black dot on my bottom lip that you and I were at a party for Anderson [Cooper]‘s mom in April. And you said, ‘You have a black dot on your lip. I don’t think that’s something good,'” he said at the time.
“I just want to thank you because you were so dogmatic. No, honestly. And it’s all fine, but that’s a good friend and it really taught me because I am tanorexic. I love the sun, I really do,” Cohen told the morning show host. “But just be careful. And I of course thought that that kind of thing would ever happen to me and it will change my relationship to the sun. But you really helped me out there. And thank you for staying on me.”
