It’s been a little while since Regis Philbin has been mentioned on Live With Kelly and Mark. During an episode on Tuesday, February 27, Kelly Ripa acknowledged her late cohost, whom she had a complex relationship with.
The broadcast was filmed in Las Vegas, with Kelly, 53, and her husband, Mark Consuelos, visiting Darren Aronofsky’s exhibit at The Sphere. While talking to a humanoid robot on display in the exhibit, they began chatting about Live producer Michael Gelman.
“Michael Gelman is a well-known figure in the television industry,” Aura the robot told Kelly and Mark, 52. “Best recognized for his role as executive producer of the daytime talk show Live With Regis and Kathie Lee.”
After laughing with his wife and looking shocked, the Riverdale actor pointed out that the information was outdated and the show has since been renamed. “Now it is known as Live with Kelly and Mark, as in the two humans standing in front of me?” Aura asked the couple, to which Kelly replied, “Correct.”
From 1988 to 2000, Philbin cohosted Live with Kathie Lee Gifford before she left the program. In 2001, it was announced that Kelly would officially be stepping in as Kathie Lee’s replacement. The All My Children actress cohosted with Philbin for a decade before he left the series in 2011. He died in 2020 at age 88 from natural causes, just one month shy of his 89th birthday.
In her 2022 book, Live Wire: Long-Winded Short Stories, Kelly opened up about her experience sitting next to the TV veteran on Live. She admitted it was “the hardest chapter to write.”
“There were good and bad days,” the TV personality told People. “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.”
While she admitted there were some comments made on set that hurt her feelings over the years, she grew a strong bond with Philbin outside of the show.
“Off camera and outside of that building, it was a different thing,” she said. “The handful of times we spent together, I so enjoyed. We 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.”