The Truth Show BLOG

Kelly Ripa breaks 11-year silence on shocking bust-up

TV CHATTERBOX Kelly Ripa is opening up about her relationship with former Live! Co-host Regis Philbin, revealed he never wanted her as a partner and that working with the aging star was “no cakewalk.”

Kelly, 52, came onboard in 2001 to replace Kathie Lee Gifford, who’d been Philbin’s co-host for 13 years — and rumors of their feud buzzed until he left in November 2011.

Philbin, who died at 88 in 2020, claimed Kelly never talked with him after he left — and now Ripa reveals their relationship was “complicated.”

“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,” she says. “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.”

The roots of what many believe was a feud came from Kelly’s belief Philbin balked at replacing Kathie Lee, but she was forced on him by bigwigs.

“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,” she says. “I don’t think it was fair to him, but it was also not fair to me.”

She recalls her agent telling her Philbin would be the main star and for all practical purposes her “boss.”

She says the warning “was very ominous. It did not feel good.” She recalls getting off on the wrong foot the very first day when after being told not to bring “an entourage,” she arrived with a hairstylist and makeup expert. “It was not an unusual thing for people on a television show to show up with,” she says, but it upset Philbin.

When he and executive producer Michael Gelman greeted her, Philbin noted: “Uh-oh, Gelman, it’s got an entourage.” Ripa adds: “He was probably trying to be funny, but at the same time, it felt like a pile-on.”

At the time, the crack made her “feel horrible,” she says, but looking back now, she thinks he was trying to make a joke. But their relationship wasn’t always sour.

She recalls they “went to the same resort once on vacation, and he came to a dinner I hosted — one of the favorite nights of my life. I never laughed so hard.”

Now, while she’s a successful veteran talk host, she says she’d “be happy if I could be a tenth as good” as Philbin. “I loved him, and I still do.”