Kelly Ripa's Most Emotional Moments On Live

Kelly Ripa has become a regular part of many viewers' mornings as they sip their coffee alongside the popular television talk show host. She has dedicated two decades of her life to Live ever since she began as only a fill-in host alongside Regis Philbin in 2000, and every day since, it always seems that she has so many stories to tell us. As one of her previous co-hosts, Michael Strahan, told USA Today, she can even make drinking a glass of water sound interesting.

While we mostly see Ripa starting off the show by gushing over her grown children, telling a silly story of how her day started, or sharing a few heartwarming headlines in a world that seems to be so riddled with terrible news, sometimes the actress-turned-talk show host is simply in an emotional mood — she's only human. These are some of Kelly Ripa's most emotional moments on Live.

Before Kelly Ripa was ever a regular part of our mornings, she was helping out the network as a temporary co-host for a day on Live with Regis and Kathie Lee. It was during the show's "psychic week" (of all things) in November 2000 that would lead to Ripa's first of many emotional moments on the talk show.

Ripa had her cue cards ready, but she wasn't prepared for the vision that was coming. Guest psychic Char Margolis picked up on something, and it happened to be communication with young Ripa's grandmother, who had passed away prior. What made Ripa instantly tear up, however, wasn't her grandmother's spirit, which was present, but who exactly her grandmother was with. "She's also showing me another baby," Margolis mentioned, and that's when Ripa was forced to reveal a secret that she and her husband Mark Consuelos had yet to share with anybody. "It's soon. It's not far away," the psychic continued. "You're not pregnant yet, are you?"  

"I haven't told my boss yet," was Ripa's reply. Clearly, there was no need to make an official announcement anymore.

During a worldwide pandemic, quarantine can be quite an emotional time. It can be even more horrible if you aren't getting any hugs.  

At the beginning of April 2020, when a stay-at-home order was issued throughout the country during the coronavirus pandemic, Kelly Ripa and her family had just arrived in the Caribbean for a much-needed vacay. Her parents were supposed to be heading down shortly after for some good old family fun, but unfortunately, that never happened. Eventually, they decided to lock down back home (via People). 

After a few months of forced family time in the Caribbean, Ripa admitted via video chat on her talk show, "I want to hug my parents," so she thought one of her children would help her out with that request. However, all three of them were too afraid. "Guys, we've all been in lockdown together. We're fine. You can give me a hug. It's fine," she explained, but that didn't seem to do it. Ripa's silent treatment ensued, followed by her breaking down on air as she explained her situation to her co-host, Ryan Seacrest. Apparently, after nearly two decades hosting the popular morning show, she forgot that it was broadcast live as she apologized. "I don't know why I'm crying. Maybe I'm just going to get my period. Who knows," she explained. Whoops. "Did my inner monologue come out?"

When co-host Michael Strahan was set to leave Live in 2016 — after only four years as Kelly Ripa's right-hand man — things seemed to go south. Rumor has it that the network never notified Ripa of his new gig at Good Morning America until mere moments before the news broke. What resulted was Ripa taking some time off to think through how the network was treating her, upset that her show seemed to be taking a backseat on ABC's list of broadcasted content (via The New York Times).

When she made it back to the morning show the following week, she started off with a monologue explaining the situation and her genuine excitement for Strahan's next move in morning television, also adding, "I'm fairly certain that there are trained professional snipers with tranquilizer darts in case I drift" — and she began to implement air quotes — "too far off message." Yikes.

Live, she explained, has been her "second family" since joining in 2001, so becoming the last to know about the new info was disappointing, to say the least (via The Washington Post). Ripa's absence from the show that week had quickly become national news. "My dad, who was a bus driver for thirty years, thinks we're all crazy," she ended her upsetting speech. "And I think he's right." It is show business, after all!

What was supposed to be a happy 23rd birthday celebration during the coronavirus quarantine in 2020 for Kelly Ripa's son turned into quite an emotional moment. It all started when the working mama came across a photo from his first birthday that the tears began to flow. It was an adorable photo of her son sitting on an alphabet block. She took a trip down memory lane reminiscing on taking her toddler down those back hallways of JC Penney's to set up the shoot. However, as any other mother in the world would get emotional looking at photos of their sweet babies (they grow up so fast!), there was a bit more to it than that. "I think of how many mothers don't get to celebrate their sons' birthdays," she explained to co-host Ryan Seacrest as she began to cry via video chat.

What was on Ripa's mind was the shocking death of George Floyd, which had recently made headlines across the world. People turned to protest, while Ripa used her platform to describe the emotions she was feeling. "I'm so sorry," she said as tears ran down her face. "I just pray that there is peace and empathy in our nation. That's what I pray for today."

During what was supposed to be a typical show in October 2017, Kelly Ripa started off the first segment by explaining why she seemed so off that morning. "It's one of those days where there's so much bad news in the news, and so it's very hard for us to come out and be uplifting and our typical bouncy Monday selves." While their job was to entertain, Ripa found it essential to acknowledge the previous night. A gunman had opened fire during a music festival in Las Vegas, creating one of the deadliest shootings in all of US history (via History). What made Ripa and her co-host Ryan Seacrest cringe even more to their core was that Seacrest was at the exact same place the weekend prior.

Ripa explained during their broadcast that, because of these unfortunate events that happen so often in the US, she had always had a contingency plan in place for her children if they ever — God forbid — found themselves in similar situations. "[My daughter] gets so irritated by my constantly going over this, you know, this plan of action," Ripa explained of the typical teen, so as soon as Ripa saw this on the morning news, the first thing she did was wake her daughter Lola up to view it. "It occurs to me every time my kids leave the house," Ripa sadly said.

When Kelly Ripa first joined the show as Regis Philbin's co-host, he was the only one she had ever known. When he decided it was his time to leave the show in 2011 after dedicating 28 years of his life to Live, it ended up being a bit emotional for an otherwise radiant Ripa (via ABC News). The two had spent eleven years together on the morning talk show, so during his last taping, Ripa prepared a speech to send him off with — which is not what Philbin would have wanted. "It goes against the grain of everything you ever taught me to never write anything down and to speak from the heart," she started off by saying. However, the paper definitely helped her gather her thoughts as she started to tear up immediately upon reading it.

Ripa reminisced on her first day working with Philbin, just moments before she walked onto the set. The actress-turned-talk show host "was terrified." Philbin had noticed and whispered to her, "'You see that, sweetie? That's all for you. All these people are here for you,'" she explained. He taught Ripa a whole lot.

"You always want to make me feel like a million bucks," she continued, and even without him on set, she should still feel like she is. Today, she's reportedly worth $120 million (via Celebrity Net Worth).

In 2017, Kelly Ripa now had a home full of teenagers when her youngest child finally became a high school freshman. "School has always been ... a very big challenge for us in our household," she admitted to her studio audience that fall. As she had explained many times before, her son Joaquin struggled with dyslexia, and she had always worried about his grades.

She appeared on her talk show the morning after the first parent-teacher conference at his new school, and the talk show host admitted to the audience that she had been feeling a bit troubled. She had braced herself when meeting with his teacher, she explained, waiting to hear what kinds of grades he was getting. "He's getting straight A's, and I broke down crying in the middle of the parent-teacher conference," Ripa said, crying on set once again as she had the night before. The story about her son was so moving, she even brought her co-host, Ryan Seacrest, to tears before she began to feel bad about it. "I'm sorry! I don't know why I'm doing this," she said as she teared up once more. "Maybe, I don't know, maybe it's hormones." Or just one proud mama!

When actor Luke Perry passed away unexpectedly in March 2019, it stunned the world. "It's a tough day around here," Kelly Ripa explained on Live the next morning. He was someone she had grown up crushing on during his time starring on Beverly Hills, 90210, as the famed character Dylan McKay.

Perry had appeared on her talk show many times, but Ripa's husband, actor Mark Consuelos, was working closely with Perry on the television series Riverdale at the time, which left a lasting impression on Ripa's whole family. Many times, she would be speaking with her husband while he was on set off in Canada when her high school crush would be close behind. "Every time he would FaceTime me ... I would say, 'Hang on. Let me get lipstick,'" she laughed.

Just like it is for Ripa, family was especially important to Perry. "I've never had a conversation with him without talking about his kids," she explained to the audience as she began to cry. Viewers won't have to watch any episode of Live for long to hear Ripa talk about her kids, too.

When Ryan Seacrest's sister was in labor, it happened to be during a taping of Live with Kelly and Ryan in December 2018, and he couldn't wait until the end of the hour to find out exactly what was happening. He pulled out his cell phone to video chat with his sister in the hospital — who was about to start pushing any moment. Nothing seemed to be off-limits to broadcast, which shouldn't come as too big of a shock. Ryan Seacrest has pretty much spent his entire life on television, so why should this moment be any different?

Though the studio audience didn't get a chance to catch any of the real action happening at the hospital — though that would have made some pretty exciting live television — his co-host Kelly Ripa was pretty pumped to be experiencing it alongside her. "Tell [your husband] Jimmy to call us if anything really exciting happens or if he thinks that we should see something!" Ripa told her via video chat. We're sure the daytime talk show's producer wasn't too pleased with that.

It was an emotional moment for everyone involved, and though Ripa had never met Seacrest's sister, she began to tear up as soon as they got off the phone. "Women know," she explained, speaking from experience. "It's like, yeah, you're suffering so much and, like, you'll literally rob a bank for ice chips."

Entertainment is not an easy industry to be in. Steady work seems hard to find. The people who work in it will tell you that jobs come and go every day, so it was a big deal that Kelly Ripa had been on Live for 15 years in February 2016. "Fifteen years really flew by," she said, adding, "I know I joke about it all the time, like, you know, 'it's a life sentence,'" she laughed.

Ripa immediately became emotional when her producer, Michael Gelman, and co-host at the time, Michael Strahan, surprised her with a trophy and a bouquet of roses that was bigger than Ripa herself — though that's not saying much. 

She immediately burst into tears and let the studio audience know exactly why she had stuck around so long. "It is all because you have been so supportive and so accepting of me into your homes every day," she explained. "And it's an honor that I don't take for granted even for a second." And like any other magical television moment, confetti began to fall from the ceiling over little Miss Ripa.

"I have to do the public service announcement," Kelly Ripa told her studio audience during a live show in June 2018. According to a report Ripa was reading, it seemed as though JetBlue Airlines was having trouble with the types of emotional support animals passengers were bringing on board. "Under a new policy, hedgehogs, ferrets, rodents, snakes, spiders, reptiles, and animals with tusks, that's right, I said animals with tusks ... have been banned by JetBlue," Ripa said. "So if you are going to take your emotional support wild boar..." and that's when she completely lost it. She was laughing so hard that she began to cry hysterically.

However, don't take Ripa the wrong way. She felt the need to explain that she wasn't making fun of the people who really need these emotional support animals. It just seemed out of the ordinary that anyone would need one with tusks. "You can't fit an ... elephant on a JetBlue flight," she said as the tears continued to come. "Everybody knows that," but evidently, not everybody does know that.