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"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," Ripa recalled.
Kelly Ripa says the world learned of her and Mark Consuelos' secret relationship -- and marriage -- after Wendy Williams spilled the beans on her radio show.
Ripa, 53, and Consuelos, 52, met in 1995 on the set of All My Children, and eloped in Las Vegas the following year. But no one knew about their romance until Williams broke the news, according to Ripa.
On Thursday's episode of Live with Kelly and Mark, Ripa brought up the story as she and Consuelos discussed how they'll be "returning to the scene of the crime" and shooting episodes in Vegas over 27 years after they tied the knot.
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View Story"Our secret wedding, discovered by none other than Wendy Williams. True facts, I'm not kidding," Ripa recalled. "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,'" she added. "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."
Ripa said the news leaked from a source who worked in the courthouse.
"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," she explained.
Meanwhile, Ripa went on to share that she and Consuelos had wanted to keep their romance on the down low because they were costars and "didn't want it to be perceived that somehow [they] couldn't work together," adding that it "seemed like a good idea" at the time. Consuelos, meanwhile, said he thought it was a "harebrained idea."
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The pair celebrated their 27th wedding anniversary in May 2023. They share three kids: Michael, 26, Lola, 22, and Joaquin, 20.
On their 27th wedding anniversary on May 1, Ripa and Consuelos both took to Instagram to honor the special day.
Ripa posted a sweet slideshow that featured photos of her and Consuelos from over the years. "27 years … in 27 seconds! Happy Anniversary to my beloved @Instasuelos," she captioned the video, adding the hashtag "TimeFlies."
Meanwhile, Consuelos shared a throwback shot of himself and Ripa, writing, "Happy Anniversary to my fave @kellyripa ..27 years!!!!!"
In an interview with Entertainment Tonight in June, Ripa opened up about her and Consuelos' nearly three decades of marriage, sharing that there is "no secret" to a successful marriage.
"It goes fast, I'm telling you'" she told the outlet. "...You're going to go through things, there are ups and downs."
"The thing is, don't panic. ... I think if you ask either one of us how long we've been married we'll probably say something in between three and eight years because that seems like a reasonable number to be married," she added. "But then we look and we have adult children and we've gone through a lot of things together. And our kids will show us documentaries that they think we'd find interesting and I'll say to them, 'Oh, you know, Dad and I were married when that went down.' And they're like, 'What? But look at how old-fashioned it is.' They can't conceptualize. It's funny. It goes faster than you think."
