NEWSKelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos' Secret 1996 Wedding Was Exposed by Wendy Williams
Feb. 22 2024, Published 12:36 p.m. ET
Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos attempted to hid their 1996 marriage from their All My Children costars for months — but the secret finally got out because Wendy Williams talked about it on her former radio show.
The pair secretly got married in 1996.
"Our secret wedding, discovered by none other than Wendy Williams. True facts, I'm not kidding," Ripa, 53, said on Live with Kelly and Mark, adding that when the pair traveled to Clark County courthouse in Las Vegas to get a marriage license, an eyewitness ended up leaking the news to Williams.
Wendy Williams' niece gave an update on her aunt.
"We'd eloped. It'd been a few months at that point, we'd been married for three months, nobody at [All My Children] knew we were even dating, much less married to each other. We're brushing our teeth and we've got Wendy Williams' radio show on. We're listening, and she's like, 'I've got celebrity dish,'" Ripa recalled. "The celebrities, I guess they had a broad use of the term back then, was the fact that two soap stars from All My Children, Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos ... eloped in Las Vegas. There was this eyewitness that worked in the Clark County courthouse that said we eloped, and the news broke, and we had to tell everybody we were married."
At the time, the pair wanted to keep their romance under wraps since they "worked together and we didn't want it to be perceived that somehow we couldn't work together," she said. "It seemed like a good idea" at the time."
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The two co-host 'Live with Kelly and Ryan.'
Ripa and Consuelos, 52, now co-host their daytime show together. When it was revealed that the Riverdale star would take over for Ryan Seacrest, they were excited to get the chance to work together again.
"During the pandemic when Riverdale was shut down for about six months, it was the first time we had been together uninterrupted for like, five years," Ripa told People about their strong bond. "I prefer the togetherness. I really enjoy being around him — he's great company, so funny, so smart, insightful, pragmatic and super level-headed. He doesn't get rattled, and that's very reassuring and comforting to be around."
Kelly Ripa said she loved being around Mark Consuelos in the pandemic.
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Of course, there's been trials and tribulations along the way.
"I don't understand when people say, 'We never fight.' I go, 'Oh, they're in trouble,'" the mom-of-three said.
"Many people we know have gone through a divorce and a separation and when you ask 'Why did you guys wind up getting a divorce?', it's always the same answer: 'I don't really know.' I feel like we could have over the years let something small turn into that and [instead] we just put our heads down, got together and said 'Let's work it out…'" she added.
