- Share this article on Facebook
- Share this article on Twitter
- Share this article on Flipboard
- Share this article on Email
- Show additional share options
- Share this article on Linkedin
- Share this article on Pinit
- Share this article on Reddit
- Share this article on Tumblr
- Share this article on Whatsapp
- Share this article on Print
- Share this article on Comment
Michael Strahan may be gone from ABC’s Live but he was far from forgotten on Monday’s show.
Kelly Ripa and guest co-host Jimmy Kimmel had barely taken their seats and greeted the crowd when Kimmel quipped, “Where’s Michael?”
With that, the ABC late night host jokingly grilled Ripa and executive producer Michael Gelman for the next few minutes about what really happened behind the scenes with Strahan, who left the show Friday just weeks after announcing he’d be leaving the daytime show for Good Morning America.
Ripa laughed in response to his “Where’s Michael?” question and joked back, “That’s right you don’t read newspapers, I forgot.”
Related Stories
Kimmel: “I don’t pay attention. Everything OK?”
Ripa: “Yeah, everything’s great.”
But he wasn’t done there. Ripa said that having Kimmel as her first guest co-host is “tradition whenever we re-launch the show,” to which he chimed in, “I’m like an ex-boyfriend that you go back to for sex after you break up with your husband.”
Then he went after the dirt: “Let’s start from the beginning. What happened?”
Ripa laughed uproariously but Kimmel did ask a few questions, which he said came from Howard Stern, whose SiriusXM radio show he’d appeared on earlier on Monday, and he directed most of them at Gelman after Ripa pointed out that he was sweating.
Question one: “Will you ever talk to Michael Strahan again?”
Gelman: “I’m sure I will.”
Related Stories
Question two: “Will he back on the show as a guest?”
Gelman: “At some point. It’s possible.”
Kimmel then turned to Ripa and asked her if the best wishes, hugs and kisses she gave to Strahan during his last show were genuine.
“Yeah we don’t fake hug and kiss,” she said. “It wasn’t like air-kissing. It was a genuine, ‘I’m going to miss you. Good luck.’ ”
Luckily for Ripa, Gelman and the daytime talk show audience, Kimmel didn’t go nearly as far as Stern and Co. suggested with their NSFW questions.
Kimmel also asked Ripa about a newspaper report that pictures of Strahan would be taken down, after noticing “a million pictures” of the former co-host backstage.
“We haven’t gotten around to it yet,” said Ripa.
Related Stories
Indeed, the show has been re-branded as Live With Kelly, the moniker it used after Regis Philbin retired and Ripa searched for her co-host four years ago. And Kimmel even suggested that each guest co-host could write his name on his Live With Kelly mug.
After Philbin left, it took the Live team months to pick Strahan as Ripa’s co-host.
Kimmel wanted the show to have a shorter search this time and settle the question of who’ll replace Strahan that day.
So he commissioned the wheel of prizes used during Live‘s trivia contest, which he’d filled out with seven possible co-hosts: Kylie Jenner, Jon Bon Jovi, Jojo (the Bachelorette), Derek Jeter, Pippa Middleton (“Ripa and Pippa is a nice sounding thing,” Kimmel said), Becky With the Good Hair and a party-size summer sausage.
The sausage won, something Ripa and the audience were excited about. But Kimmel quickly revealed he had bad news.
“The sausage is leaving to go to Good Morning America,” he said.
Ripa said, “Oh my gosh, again?!”
THR Newsletters
Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day