ENTERTAINMENT'Am I Having a Stroke?': Kelly Ripa Spirals After Showering at 2 a.m. and Thinking It Was Morning
Kelly Ripa revealed she accidentally woke up at 2 a.m. thinking it was time to start her day.
March 4 2026, Published 7:26 p.m. ET
Kelly Ripa had a very early start to her day, though it wasn't one she planned.
During the Wednesday, March 4, episode of Live With Kelly and Mark, the longtime host admitted she was feeling tired after mistakenly waking up at 2 a.m. and thinking it was time to start her morning routine.
"Guys, I'm a little sluggish today. I'm going to be perfectly up front with you all because I woke up, sprang out of bed, went into the bathroom to turn on the shower at 2 o'clock this morning. You know, like, fully awake," Ripa confessed.
Kelly Ripa said she 'sprang out of bed' and turned on the shower before realizing it was the middle of the night.
Her husband and co-host, Mark Consuelos, was stunned, asking: "Like you felt refreshed. Like a good night's sleep?"
"Yeah. Great night's sleep. Amazing. Look at me, beating my alarm. Let me get into the shower. 2:00 a.m.," Ripa recalled.
Consuelos suggested her accidental early morning may have been caused by a long afternoon nap the day before.
"I came through the bathroom and you were listening to a podcast and you were sleeping for maybe a good hour and a half," he noted.
Mark Consuelos wondered if Kelly Ripa’s afternoon nap caused her early wake-up call.
Ripa admitted she had dozed off while preparing for her own podcast taping.
"I fell asleep. I had to tape my podcast. So I was listening to a different podcast to prepare for my podcast, and I fell asleep," she quipped.
Once she realized it was the middle of the night, Ripa attempted to quietly return to bed — despite her husband's snoring.
"You were snoring," she told Consuelos.
"I was snoring? Through the mouth tape?" he replied.
"Through the mouth tape. With your nose guard. I lightly slammed the bed several times," Ripa revealed, joking that him flipping over did little to stop the noise.
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Kelly Ripa said she 'rabbit holed' herself after trying to stay calm and fall back asleep.
But the real drama came when she tried to fall back asleep without reaching for her phone.
"I'm not gonna go on my phone, I'm not gonna doom scroll the news. I'm not gonna awaken myself. I'm going to sit here and I'm gonna think about things. Like, I'm gonna think about very boring things until I fall asleep," she said.
Ripa's attempt to calm her mind by thinking about knitting patterns quickly spiraled.
"I was just thinking about nothingness. And then I started thinking loudly about nothingness. And then I was like, 'You know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna do that box breathing.' So I started box breathing, and then I started thinking I was box breathing too quickly, and maybe it's elevating my heart rate," she shared.
'Am I Having a Stroke?'
Kelly Ripa admitted she spiraled into health fears, asking herself, 'Am I having a stroke? Do I smell toast?'
That's when her imagination took a dark turn.
"Then I started thinking, 'Am I having a stroke? Do I smell toast?' I rabbit holed myself," Ripa admitted.
Consuelos tried to reassure her, suggesting reading might have helped, but his wife of nearly 30 years insisted, "Reading stimulates me."
Ripa circled back to reveal why she mentioned her restlessness in the first place, stating, "Anyway, I bring this all up to tell you that if I yawn today or seem even more off than normal, now you know why."
Consuelos, however, had faith in his wife.
"I think you're pretty on it," he told her.
"We'll see. Wait till I get to the story," Ripa teased.
