Ryan Seacrest’s ‘Live’ Exit Interview: How the Six-Year Gig Changed Him and What’s Next for America’s Favorite Host
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Monday morning started out just like any other day for Ryan Seacrest. The alarm went off at 5:45 a.m. and he got straight to work.
Except this time, he wasn’t in New York City leaving for the “Live With Kelly and Ryan” studio, where he’d do “Host Chat” perched next to Kelly Ripa. Instead, he threw off the covers and leaned into a microphone at his bedside to start “On Air With Ryan Seacrest” on Los Angeles’ KIIS-FM. You see, last Friday marked his final episode of “Live,” and after six years of working six jobs at once, life as he knew it had changed.
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“The benefit of radio is I can do it remotely,” Seacrest says. “I will be able to jump out of bed, slip into my Uggs, make my coffee and be on the radio. And flip on ‘Live With Kelly and Mark’ in the background while I’m on air.”
A few days before Seacrest signed off for the last time, he sat down with Variety to discuss his decision to leave the show. He was running a few minutes late for the Zoom interview, scheduled for 1:30 p.m. ET, shortly after the end of that day’s radio show — which itself began minutes after the credits rolled on “Live.” It’s both impressive and insane how packed Seacrest’s schedule is, but he’s been doing things this way forever.
For more than two decades, Seacrest has been the ultimate on-air personality, hosting “American Idol” for 21 seasons, along with “On Air With Ryan Seacrest” and “American Top 40” for 19 years each. Add to that 18 editions of “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve,” as well as gigs on “E! News” and “Live From the Red Carpet.” But Seacrest was still nervous to be in front of a new audience when he joined “Live.”
“When I started the show, I’d done a lot of live broadcasting and storytelling on the radio, but never on television in this kind of format,” he says. “Kelly has been doing this for a long time, on this show, on this stage at this desk. How would I do? I wanted to prove to myself and to the audience that that was the right choice, so I put pressure on myself at the beginning.”
The “Host Chat” segment at the beginning of the show, where Seacrest and Ripa recap their previous day, forced him to broaden his horizons and find time for hobbies. “My signature conversation became about trying to have dinner at quarter to 5:00 p.m. in New York City, and being the person or the couple standing outside the restaurant door waiting for them to open, and being out by 5:45 p.m.,” he quips. With his love of food mirroring his love of music — “I don’t know that there’s anything as universal as music as the world of food culture,” he says — Seacrest began to more fully embrace and explore that world, but more on that later.
Ultimately, six seasons on “Live” helped Seacrest evolve as a broadcaster.
“I found a relaxed, slowed-down version of myself on the air,” he says. “I’ve become more comfortable letting things just happen without thinking about what has to come next. Because it can really go in any direction.”
The week before his final episode, “Live” went on spring hiatus and Seacrest jetted to Italy for a vacation. But he wasn’t just lounging around. “I was looking back at the six years and remembering when initially it was just going to be three,” he says. “And then with each year that went by, I continued to extend my contract because I love sitting next to my partner and having this unique and casual connection to the people that watch.”
Since Seacrest joined, “Live” has consistently performed well with audiences. As of his second-to-last week on air, “Live” celebrated its 29th consecutive week as the No. 1 syndicated talk show across all key Nielsen measures (households, women 25-54 and total viewers, with 2.3 million people tuning in), a position it has held for the past three years. And in 2019, Ripa and Seacrest won a Daytime Emmy for outstanding entertainment talk show hosts.
For Seacrest, it wasn’t really about the trophy. “Being the host of one of the longest-running franchises on television for six years has been a real accomplishment,” he says.
During his tenure, programs like “The View” and “The Talk” got more political — particularly during Donald Trump’s presidency — but “Live” stuck to its lighter format.
“That may be why people came to watch, because it was different from others that did turn that direction,” Seacrest suggests. “We were relief from a lot of the heavy news, from the division in the country, and we are mindful of that when we’re on the air. We’re mindful of the level of fun the show should be, and counterprogramming to anything that is political. And frankly, I’m more comfortable with that. We felt like this is a place where people can enjoy, laugh, smile, forget and escape the heavier things.”
During his fourth year on “Live,” Seacrest began thinking about exiting and brought Ripa into the discussion. “A year before the announcement, we made the decision on the date,” he says. Then on Feb. 16, he shared the news with viewers.
“It becomes real when you’re on a national broadcast and you’re live looking into that camera,” he recalls. “You’re thinking of the right words to convey gratitude, and the bittersweetness of the moment.”
During his final goodbye on April 14, Seacrest spoke through tears at the end of an hour-long show that presented a highlight reel of his greatest moments, including the Halloween shows where he and Ripa dressed up as each other, the post-Oscars specials in the Dolby Theatre (where he’d declared, “The winner of American Idol is Kelly Clarkson,” and now says, “Every time I go back to the stage I think of that. That building is so nostalgic”), plus the time he tumbled backwards out of his chair (voted by “Live” viewers as their favorite clip.)
“It’s hard to put into words how deeply I’ve appreciated being here and being with you, being invited into your homes every day to try and deliver a smile, or a laugh or two,” he told the audience. “I’m honored to be part of this family. I’m blessed with so many memories. I was refreshed of many of those memories moments ago. I will cherish, I will relish those memories. I’ll relive those memories forever.”
Now that “Live” is over, Seacrest is focused on “American Idol,” which begins airing live episodes on April 23. How much longer does he plan to work on the singing competition show? “I hope to host that show forever,” Seacrest says.
Remember: When “Idol” ended the first time in 2016, Seacrest signed off with the cryptic quip, “Goodnight America … for now,” as the credits faded to black.
“That was manifesting, putting it into the universe, creating that karma, that it would come back. I didn’t know anything,” he says. As fate would have it, the weekend he moved to NYC for “Live,” ABC picked up “Idol.”
“There I was thinking, ‘How am I going to go back and forth and do this? I will figure out a way,’” Seacrest remembers. “And I’ve racked up some air miles.”
Over six years of bicoastal living, Seacrest developed skills to avoid burnout. For the long-haul flights, he relies on a Tempur-Pedic pillow, but his zest for it all is what really keeps him going.
“It’s all I ever wanted. It’s all I ever set out to do. When I think about the days where I would watch Dick Clark host New Year’s Eve, sitting on a shag carpet in the basement, I’d think to myself, ‘Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be in Times Square as a reveler one day watching this happen?’ It still flashes to my mind that I didn’t have it at one point, so to have it is still exciting.”
He’s come quite a long way since leaving the University of Georgia early to head for Hollywood in pursuit of a broadcast career. If that young man could see him now, Seacrest says, “He would think he’s never going to get another job. The 19-year-old me would say yes to everything, then manage it all.”
He continues: “Looking back on that with some wisdom, it’s easier to say, ‘Everything’s gonna be okay. It’s okay to close a chapter and look forward to a new one. And what’s next is probably going to be something that you didn’t even see coming.’”
Seacrest’s next ventures take him into the world of food, satisfying the whims of his 12-year-old self, who relished family dinners at local Atlanta restaurants as a reward for getting good grades.
“I knew I wanted to be a broadcaster, but my fallback plan was to be a chef, to be around food and learn how to do it well,” Seacrest recalls. “I was very much into the performance aspect of how a kitchen worked, and how it was served. It was like backstage and onstage.”
His curiosity about food culture has developed into a business venture: Seacrest formed an agricultural company four and a half years ago to study the process of producing extra virgin olive oil and organic wine. “Soon, we’ll be setting up a kiosk for me to sell some of these things,” he says. The label will be called “Concento,” which means “The story of why you come.”
“I’ve just found so much joy and fun in doing it,” Seacrest explains. “Dovetailing from it will be ideas for shows and programs, as well.”
He is also focused on giving back via the Ryan Seacrest Foundation, which will open broadcast media centers in Memphis, New York City and Salt Lake City-area pediatric hospitals this year, joining the 11 locations already up and running. Established in 2009 with an emphasis on creating a cheery environment for hospitalized children and their families, Seacrest Studios also serves as a launching pad for local college students who intern there.
“Part of the vision was to have a place for the junior varsity to train, have experience and see what aspects they love about broadcasting,” he explains. “Being live and immediate is so near and dear to my heart, it’s really the only thing I know how to do.”
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