In this week’s cover story for “People,” Kelly Ripa opened up about her relationship with former “Live!” co-host Regis Philbin while discussing her new book, “Live Wire: Long-Winded Short Stories.”
The 51-year-old television host, who worked with Philbin from 2001 to 2011 after replacing Kathie Lee Gifford, told “People” that the pages about her dynamic with Philbin made up “the hardest chapter” for her to write.
“There were good and bad days,” she said of the decade she spent co-hosting “Live! With Regis and Kelly.” “I don’t want to feel like I’m slamming anyone or that I’m being disrespectful. But I also want people to know it was not a cakewalk. It took years to earn my place there and earn things that are routinely given to the men I worked with. Including an office and a place to put my computer.”
Ripa joined the daytime talk show in 2001 after Lee Gifford departed the gig co-hosting with Philbin after 15 years.
“The biggest misconception is that it all came easily,” Ripa says. “People think I just showed up one day and was handed a job and I lived happily ever after and now everything’s perfect. But it never is that way.”
Ripa’s agent alerted her of what was to come after she guest co-hosted three times, each time being told that the show wasn’t searching for a permanent co-host. Ripa says she was told that “they want you to know who your boss is.”
“It was very ominous, and it did not feel good,” she said.
She was also asked not to “bring an entourage,” so she brought exactly two people for hair and makeup.
“It was not an unusual thing for people on a television show to show up with,” she said.
Before approaching the stage to begin her time with Philbin, he turned in front of her to executive producer Michael Gelman and said, “Uh-oh, Gelman, it’s got an entourage.”
“I felt horrible,” Ripa said. “He was probably trying to be funny, but at the same time it felt like a pile-on. I understand that probably he didn’t want a co-host, but the network wanted me to be the co-host and I didn’t think I should pass up that opportunity. I don’t think it was fair to him. But it was also not fair to me.”
Ripa also recalled fond memories of her co-host, like a dinner party he attended where she “never laughed so hard,” and other moments “off camera and outside of that building.”
Ultimately, Ripa credits Philbin as “the world’s best storyteller,” and hopes to “become a tenth as good” as he was.
Philbin died at age 88 in 2020, and Ripa now co-hosts “Live! With Kelly and Ryan” alongside Ryan Seacrest.
