Two years after parting ways as co-hosts, Ryan Seacrest and Kelly Ripa’s bond is still going strong!
Speaking about Live! — which Ripa, 54, now co-hosts with husband Mark Consuelos — two years after taking his final bow on Live! in April 2023, Seacrest, 50, had nothing but fond things to say about the talk show. Plus, he revealed that he and Ripa are still pals off-screen.
“I love that show,” the American Idol host told E! News on Monday, April 28, recalling that he “had a blast doing it.”
“Kelly and I are still the closest friends,” he added, “Mark too.”
Seacrest, who first stepped in to co-host the talk show in 2017, also revealed that he may be back in the Live! studio soon — but as a guest this time, rounding out the “trifecta” of Live! hosts.
“Mark and Kelly have invited me to come on in a couple weeks,” he told E! News. “So, I will be there. The trifecta, we’ll be on the set.”
“I can’t wait to see them,” he added.
And the upcoming reunion may be an emotional one, as Seacrest — who recently began another hosting gig, taking over for longtime Wheel of Fortune co-host Pat Sajak — previously told the outlet that the most difficult part of leaving Live! was saying goodbye to Ripa.
“I’ll miss being next to Kelly every single day,” he told E! News in 2023.
“We’re extremely close, we’re very good friends, we’ll remain good friends,” he continued at the time. “But there’s that hour of communicating with somebody. You become super excited about doing it. You laugh, and then, of course, you can’t remember what you said to each other. So, I’ll miss that part.”
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Before he said goodbye to Live! in 2023, Seacrest — along with Ripa — explained that the exit was something the duo had “been talking about for a long time.”
“It was a tough, tough decision,” said Seacrest in February 2023, two months before his final episode as co-host. “Last year, we spoke and I made the decision to make this my last season as co-host with Kel, here, on Live! with Kelly and Ryan, which is bittersweet.”
Ripa, meanwhile, revealed that originally, Seacrest was actually only “supposed to be here for three years.”
“We were like, ‘Oh don’t be ridiculous — you already moved your sofa here!’ But three turned into six,” she continued, “because of the genuine fun of being on this television show every hour of every day.”
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