Yahoo readers react to Kelly Ripa's 'extreme poverty' comment
Kelly Ripa set the Internet on fire after comments she made about her son, Michael Consuelos, rubbed some readers the wrong way.
Ripa appeared on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” and told Kimmel that her son is out on his own for the first time since graduating college and is fending for himself financially. “I think he loves the freedom. He hates paying his own rent and he’s chronically poor.” She joked, “I don’t think he ever really experienced extreme poverty like now.”
She also said her son used to ignore money his grandparents sent him for Halloween, but now he’s anxiously awaiting its arrival. "Now that he's living on his own, he's called three times. 'Halloween envelope arrived?' Just so he can have electricity. He's experiencing being an adult,” Ripa said.
Many found Ripa’s choice of words, well, poor. Ripa, however, didn’t feel the need to apologize and defended herself in an instagram post, calling the uproar “fake outrage.”
She wrote, “Michael goes to college and is a senior and works full time. He is in his first non parent subsidized apt with roommates. I’m used to getting a lot of slack because people love to have fake outrage over something they didn’t see. They only read a headline and wag their tired fingers. I didn’t grow up privileged and neither did [husband, actor Mark Consuelos]. We work and expect our kids to as well. And the fact that a pack of fools want to b**** about that, i say let em.”
Though Ripa may have brushed off the criticism, some Yahoo readers didn’t and took the top talker to task.
One reader took issue with an “adult” relying on Halloween money:
Another questioned the use of the word “poverty” to describe Ripa’s son’s situation:
One reader felt that Ripa ignored people who were actually struggling:
Dennis said that Ripa’s son didn’t actually have anything to worry about since his parents live in a “multi million dollar mansion:”
But at least one reader didn’t take any of it too seriously:
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