No, Kelly Ripa 'did not almost die having sex at Jimmy Buffett's house' — wait, what?
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You know the old story: soap actress turned morning talk show host writes a memoir, includes a bit about passing out while having sex with her incredibly hot husband, internet has a field day. But where did Jimmy Buffett come in?
Kelly Ripa is setting the record straight about an anecdote she shared in her upcoming book about a coital mishap with hubby Mark Consuelos landed her in the ER. The original tale goes as such: it's 1997, the Spice Girls are the biggest group in the world, and Ripa and Consuelos are newlyweds with their first child, doing what young couples do when they have a literal moment of quiet to themselves.
Next thing Ripa knows, she's waking up in the emergency room, diagnosed with two ovarian cysts, her husband "munching" away on some crackers.
"Sex can be so traumatic I think, and yet one of us is completely undaunted," Ripa recalls in Live Wire: Long-Winded Short Stories (out Sept. 27). "There he is, happily munching on the saltines now and ordering a second apple juice. Mark could be at a movie, or a spa. Instead, I'm flat on my back wondering when the other two cysts will burst."
Somehow, along the way, this story morphed from Ripa passing out during sex with Consuelos to Ripa almost dying during sex with Consuelos at Jimmy Buffett's house. The diminutive daytime diva brought up this turn of events on Live With Kelly and Ryan on Wednesday, disclosing she had sent her co-host Ryan Seacrest the outlandish story.
"I was at the knee doctor yesterday and she sent me the article about how she almost died during sex with Mark. I said, 'Well, the pain has just gone away!'" Seacrest said during the morning show.
Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images
"I'm talking to the outlet that printed this specifically," Ripa said. "If you're not going to bother to read the book and you're going to read an article about the book, then at least read the [right] article," adding, "Because no, I did not almost die having sex at Jimmy Buffett's house."
The Jimmy Buffett bit, it seems, is from another story Ripa shared with Haute Living from her memoir, involving her once meeting and slightly stalking Richard Gere while at the "Margaritaville" singer's house for Anjelica Huston's birthday party. Ripa and Gere attended to a party guest who had eaten a particularly potent pot brownie.
When she ran into Gere again, Ripa asked him, "Do you remember when we saved that woman's life at Jane Buffet's house during Anjelica's birthday party?"
Gere's response: "You were there?"
So now that mystery's solved, we can put to bed the idea that noted zaddy Consuelos nearly killed America's sweetheart with his bedroom skills.
"But what a great story!" Seacrest quipped. "My knee was instantly healed." Ripa agreed that it was "an incredible story, and I wish it were true," but "it's just not."
The true version — the one with the cysts and the saltines — still sounds pretty good, even without a trip to Margaritaville.
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