Kelly Ripa Says Her Mother Was 'Convinced' She'd Be Kidnapped and in 'Porn' When She Went to New York

Actress/tv personality Kelly Ripa attends the "Nothing Left Unsaid" New York premiere at Time Warner Center on April 4, 2016 in New York City.
Actress/tv personality Kelly Ripa attends the "Nothing Left Unsaid" New York premiere at Time Warner Center on April 4, 2016 in New York City.
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Kelly Ripa shared a never-before-told story about how her mother was convinced when she was a child that she would be abducted and forced into porn if she ever went to New York City.

The Live! With Kelly and Ryan co-host, 51, spoke with pal Anderson Cooper on Thursday while discussing her new book, Live Wire: Long-Winded Short Stories, at Symphony Space in New York City. Her dreams of the Big Apple started when she was around 7 years old after her grandfather took her to see a film set in the city.

But her New Jersey-based parents, Joseph and Esther, were not particularly enthusiastic about their daughter's plans.

RELATED: Kelly Ripa Gets Candid About Everything — from Marriage and Sex to Botox and Regis

"My parents were like, 'New York City? You'll be killed. You'll be kidnapped," Ripa recalled.

According to Esther, now 81: "These girls like you [are] coming off the bus and they chloroform them. … They chloroform you and then they drag you into the bathroom. And they chloroform you, and they put junk in your arm."

"I didn't know what that was. I was like, 'Junk in my arm?'" she told Cooper, 54, about her youthful ignorance to the slang term for heroin.

But Esther kept going, describing how vague city people would "get you hooked on junk. And they'll cut your hair so you're unrecognizable to your parents. And the next thing you're in porn!"

Kelly Ripa attends The Paley Center For Media Presents: An Evening with "Live with Kelly and Ryan" at Paley Center For Media on March 04, 2020 in New York City.
Kelly Ripa attends The Paley Center For Media Presents: An Evening with "Live with Kelly and Ryan" at Paley Center For Media on March 04, 2020 in New York City.

Astrid Stawiarz/Getty

RELATED: The Biggest Surprises from Kelly Ripa's Memoir, Live Wire: Long-Winded Short Stories

Anecdotes like this are just some of the tea that Ripa spills in Live Wire, which was released on Tuesday.

In the memoir, the former All My Children star gets personal about marrying husband Mark Consuelos five days after they broke up, then going on to have three children and a thriving sex life.

She also got real about the "good days and bad days" she had while co-hosting Live with Regis Philbin.