The yin to his yang. Michael Strahan confirmed the news on Monday, April 25, that his Live With Kelly and Michael cohost, Kelly Ripa, will be returning to the daytime talk show on Tuesday.
“[Ripa] had a scheduled day off to celebrate her 20th anniversary,” Strahan, 44, said on Monday, alongside guest cohost Shay Mitchell. “She’s going to be back tomorrow, which we are all excited about.” (Ripa wrote an email to the Live staff on Friday night that she would be back on Tuesday.)
Ripa, 45, hasn’t appeared on Live since it was announced last Tuesday that Strahan is leaving the program for a full-time gig at Good Morning America.
“[She] took a sick day,” a source told Us of Ripa’s absence last Wednesday. “No way she was walking back into that today.” A show rep added: “Kelly had today off from the show.” As previously reported, Ripa did have Thursday and Friday off already to celebrate her anniversary with her husband, Mark Consuelos.
Nevertheless, in private Ripa hasn’t taken Strahan’s shocking departure well. According to The New York Times, the former soap star felt blindsided by his exit (she was told shortly before ABC confirmed the news) and stormed out of a meeting with Strahan, Live executive producer Michael Gelman and WABC general manager Dave Davis.
Ripa and Strahan haven’t communicated since then. “Michael still hasn’t even heard a peep from her,” an insider told Us on Friday. “It wasn’t his place to tell Kelly [about GMA],” the source added. “The head of the network is supposed to tell the staff these things.”
Ripa, meanwhile, has been spending time with her family amid the chaos. Last Thursday, she resurfaced outside her NYC home. In her hand at the time? Malcolm Gladwell’s 2013 bestseller David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants, which gives examples on how underdogs were able to beat the odds against their competition.