Mark Consuelos Talks Replacing Ryan Seacrest as Co-Host of ‘Live’ With Kelly Ripa, Marriage Counseling and Virtual Sex
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Welcome to this week’s “Just for Variety.”
Mark Consuelos doesn’t mind hand-me-downs from Ryan Seacrest. Consuelos tells me he’s inheriting Seacrest’s dressing room when “Live With Kelly and Ryan” becomes “Live With Kelly and Mark” on April 17. “I’m no dummy,” Consuelos says on this week’s episode of the “Just for Variety” podcast. “Ryan is very fancy — he’s got fancy stuff.”
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At the same time it was announced in February that Seacrest was leaving “Live,” it was revealed that Consuelos will replace him as his wife Kelly Ripa’s co-host on the syndicated daytime talk show. “The first conversations started with like, ‘That is the worst idea ever,’”
Consuelos recalls. “Kelly and I were like, ‘Yeah, that’s insane. Why would we do that?’ Then I was like, ‘Well, I have filled in a lot over the past few years.’ She goes, ‘You have.’”
As Variety’s Elizabeth Wagmeister first reported in March in a cover profile of Ripa for the annual Power of Women issue, the longtime host’s deal now sits at about $20 million a year. Consuelos says of his pay, “This is my first contract on the job, so I shouldn’t make anywhere near what she makes. … I’m the newbie, so yeah, I won’t be playing hardball for sure.”
And he won’t be discussing their sex life on “Live.” Ripa opened up, during her recently launched “Let’s Talk Off Camera With Kelly Ripa” podcast, about how she and Consuelos engage in virtual sex when he’s out of town. “She is an open book,” Consuelos says, explaining he thinks that’s one reason audiences have stayed with her for 22 years of “Live.” Then he adds, “I definitely do not think we’ll be talking about that from 9 to 10 a.m. on Mondays through Fridays.”
It was on the same podcast that they revealed that they go to couple’s therapy. “We didn’t go into marriage counseling because we were in any kind of crisis,” Consuelos explains. “There were two things that were happening, one was that we became empty-nesters and then the job came up. I said, ‘What a great time for us to have a good reset on how we communicate…Wouldn’t it be a great time?’”
Consuelos says the show will become a “full nepo” production by possibly having his and Ripa’s three kids appear on the show. Consuelos and Ripa have been married for about 27 years. They started dating when they were both on “All My Children.” “I think we’ve joked about it,” he says. “Michael, our 25-year-old, would be hysterical. I’d love to see him with Kelly. Lola, she’s a dynamo, she would be amazing. Joaquin is a little bit more reserved, and I think he’d probably opt out.”
Find out what happened during Consuelos’ early days in New York that prompted him to almost quit acting by listening to the full interview on “Just for Variety” above or wherever you get your favorite podcasts.
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