The queen of comedy, interviewing, and hosting talk shows, all in one, Kelly Ripa is the type of woman you automatically feel like is your best friend. She connects with her audience and shares her own life stories — every morning. And she always looks fabulous doing it.
To top it all off, her sense of humor is positively infectious. So how does this mother, host, and one-of-a-kind entertainer really do it all? Let's take a look at Ripa's ever-stunning transformation throughout the years.
A mother's support, growing up
A New Jersey native, Ripa lived there until her late teens when she headed to New York City. When discussing her childhood, Ripa has always been open about her strong relationship with her mother. She shared in the book I Love You, Mom! (via Good Housekeeping), "Growing up, I knew that I could count on your help for any obstacle that I faced. I could depend on you to drop off my homework at school when I left it at home, drive me around to all of my activities, or even tell me my hair looked great when it was sprayed and teased to at least five feet in the air!"
And although Ripa's mom had reservations about her daughter's acting goals, she was there for her. Ripa recalled this to Elle, saying, "She worried that I'd either get my heart broken or live under a bridge." Clearly though, things worked out.
Her first role was a big one
After Ripa moved to New York for her career, she became a demo girl for Nerf footballs at a toy store. But it didn't take long for the stars to align. In 1990, Ripa earned the role of Hayley in the soap opera All My Children. Just 20 years old at the time, Ripa later reflected on her success and how it came about, telling Redbook, "There was never any clear-cut path. And anytime I tried to have a clear-cut path, that's usually when I would be disappointed. In the entertainment industry, you can only work so hard to achieve a goal. It's really 90 percent luck, 5 percent opportunity, and 5 percent skill."
Her role on the soap lasted for more than a decade, and Ripa knew when she was ready for her next steps. She continued on to say, "Eventually I saw that I had to change my own destiny. I had to light my own fire. When the opportunity came to host Live, a lot of my friends said, 'You're not a talk-show host, you're an actor — if you go on talk shows that will be the end of your acting career.' But after I took the talk show, I was offered the sitcom [Kelly costarred on ABC's Hope & Faith from 2003 to 2006] and lots of other acting jobs. Sometimes opportunity begets opportunity and work begets work, and you just have to take a leap."
A fateful encounter on a soap opera
Aside from a break-out role, All My Children brought something else very important into Ripa's life: her husband. Ripa met Mark Consuelos on the show, and the actress knew from the very beginning that he had a role in her life. As she told Redbook, "When I met Mark, I was just sort of thunderstruck. I had a dream about him that night. The next day I went up to him and, although I didn't even know his name, I said, 'I had a dream about you last night. We were married and had a little girl and were on a plane to Rome.' And he was like, 'Oh, really?' and walked away and probably thought about filing a restraining order."
But clearly 24-year-old Ripa and her dream didn't scare Consuelos away. The couple eloped in Vegas in 1996, after dating for just a year. And in 2017, 21 years later, they are still happily married.
Predicting her next gig
Ripa's biggest role came in 2001 when the 31-year-old auditioned to be one of the new hosts on Live with Regis and Kathie Lee. And her audition did not disappoint. During the episode, a guest psychic predicted Ripa's future pregnancy. Little did the world know, Ripa was pregnant at the time with her second child. As she said on the show (via The Washington Post), "I haven't told my boss yet!"
Not surprisingly, Ripa landed the gig. This was a show where she truly brought her personality to the show and to the audience. Executive producer for the show, Michael Gelman, reflected on this time with The Washington Post, "It was just such a real moment that it showed Kelly in a light for really who she was…She had that much honesty she couldn't not react."
Putting family first
One reason why Ripa always seems like a friend you can relate to, on her talk show, is because she tells real stories about her family. With three kids, Ripa has been open about motherhood and the antics she finds herself in day-in and day-out. And once the 32-year-old left All My Children in 2002, she had even more time to be with her kids and her husband. As she told Good Housekeeping, "I feel great not having to go [to set] after I work in the morning. This is all new to me, having free time, having time to have lunch. For the first time in 13 years, I can have lunch with my husband at a restaurant. I had no idea that there was this whole world of people out there eating in restaurants in the middle of the day."
And quality time isn't all that's important for the family; Ripa wants her children's education to be a focus as well. She shared her thoughts on this during the interview, discussing how she never went to college and wanted more for her kids. She said, "Not going to college, it sort of gives you a chip on your shoulder. Would I change anything in my life? No. But I have hopes that my kids will go to college someday, certainly."
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