Kelly Ripa Loved Mark Consuelos Before She Even Met Him

Christopher Luu
Updated

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Kelly Ripa can't say that she fell in love with her husband Mark Conseulos the very first time they met. And no, she can't say that the two had a fairy-tale romance. She actually knew that she loved him way before the two ever met face to face. During an appearance on the Lunch with Bruce podcast, Ripa explained that after she saw a photograph of him, she knew he was the one (which makes for a happy ending, fairy tale or not). According to Page Six, she was helping cast the role of Mateo Santos during her time on the soap opera All My Children and when she caught a glimpse of Conseulos's headshot, that was all it took.

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"I saw my husband in a photograph before I saw him [in person] and I knew," Ripa told host Bruce Bozzi. "When I saw him, the photograph of him, I saw my entire future with him flash before [me.] Like, I saw it. And I don't believe in any of that and now I do because of that moment."

Ripa said that Judy Blye Wilson, All My Children's casting director at the time, had already auditioned every Latinx actor in the city of Los Angeles and then moved to every Latinx actor outside of the city and even expanded the search to all of California. She just couldn't find the right guy — until Conseulos.

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"[Wilson] showed me [Consuelos'] picture — and Bruce, I'm not this person — like at that point I was not a hopeless romantic," she said. "I never thought about getting married, it never occurred to me that I would grow old with someone. I just thought I would be living my single-girl life in the city [...] I had no responsibilities and I was earning a good living on the soap opera because I was there for almost seven years before Mark got there. I was a baby when I got my job."

The rest is history. Conseulos was cast in 1995. He and Ripa married just a year later. So, while it did take a minute for them to actually make things official, Ripa knew all along that she'd found her guy. All it took was a great headshot, so Conseulos may want to thank the photographer for more than just landing that soap-opera gig.