Kelly Ripa and Ryan Seacrest are continuing to broadcast Live with Kelly and Ryan from the safety of their own abodes, like many talk show hosts are doing. The other day, Kelly broke down in tears as she discussed the social tension in her home. Kelly is locked down with her husband Mark Consuelos and her three children, Michael, 22, Lola, 18 and Joaquin, 17. Kelly ‘confided’ in Ryan that she was currently not speaking to two of her children because they are refusing to hug her. She explained that she’s missing her parents (who are fine, but not with them) so much, she can’t understand why her kids don’t take the opportunity to hug her while they have her.
The stress of social distancing may have started to take its toll on Kelly Ripa.
On Wednesday’s episode of Live with Kelly and Ryan, the morning show host, 49, got emotional while reflecting on her family and how they’ve been dealing with the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.Though she is currently staying at home with husband Mark Consuelos and their three children, Ripa shared that some of her kids “won’t hug” her during their time together.
“I’m not going to lie, okay? I’m going to let you in on a little secret: I’m currently not speaking to two of my three kids. I’m not talking to two of them,” Ripa confessed to cohost Ryan Seacrest. “Just because, we’re all in the same boat together, right?”
Ripa shares daughter Lola, 18, and sons Michael, 22, and Joaquin, 17, with Consuelos, 49.
“I haven’t gotten to hug my parents. I want to hug my parents. I miss hugging my parents,” she explained as she held back tears. “And my kids, like, won’t hug me. And I’m like, ‘Guys, we’ve all been in lockdown together. We’re fine. You can give me a hug. It’s fine.’”
Normally, I would make a joke about Kelly going in for a hug and her kids whipping out a rolodex with the times she’s bagged on them on air in response. But honestly, I felt for Kelly missing her parents, needing some kind of connection to anyone right now. I know my emotions are all over the map these days. I find myself being wounded at things I would normally let roll off my back. So I could see reaching out in an emotional low point and taking the rejection as deeply personal. I don’t know that I’d stop speaking to someone over it, but Kelly does like to exaggerate.
Kelly also spoke about her kids and school. She talked about Michael’s graduation from NYU being cancelled. She said that Michael didn’t care but she’d wanted to go, and her father really wanted to see his grandson graduate. I’m thinking a lot about graduates, both college and high school. I’m like Michael, I didn’t want to walk in my high school ceremony (but did, for my parents and grandparents) and didn’t attend my college ceremony. However, graduating high school and college are big deals and I feel for anyone who will miss these once in a lifetime opportunities that was looking forward to them. As Kelly said, these are very small issues given the gravity of what’s going on in the world, but I do think people should be allowed to feel or grieve the things they are missing. As CB said in her post yesterday about coping, there really isn’t a ‘right’ way to feel currently.
Photo credit: WENN/Avalon and Instagram
I don’t get it. She’s upset they don’t want to hug her so her response is to not talk to them? How is that helping the situation?
It sounds so manipulative. I hope she was joking? But if she was, it’s a stupid joke and if I were one of her kids, it would make me really angry.
She’s saying they won’t hug her and they are not talking to her. Not that she is being vindictive to them. She told them it’s ok to hug. That sounds to me like she is speaking to them.
She’s expressing her hurt that her children are growing apart from her, which is probably normal, but nevertheless painful. My son is speaking to me but not hugging me. I get what she’s saying, it hurts. And as Hecate says, these times make us all a bit more raw and things we can live with usually hurt us more these days.
This is a time for compassion (I hope) not berating her for telling us how she feels.
I agree, @Maria!
I do feel for Kelly with wanting connection, as we all do, but I’ve always gotten a manipulative vibe from her (not talking to your children who are still around the age where they are developing into adults because they won’t hug her?!). Maybe they are just not as affectionate as her and that’s fine. It’s not just about her.
Same. She sounds like a textbook narcissist
There is something off…on the surface, Kelly request seem reasonable and understandable. However, given the comments about her daughter especially over time, I think there may be issues at home. The whole Regis and Michael Strachan craziness tells me that Kelly’s friendliness and kindness is a personna and not her true self. Being at home, her kids are dealing with Kelly the Mom not the TV personality.
I felt for her at first, and then I realized she is doing what my siblings and I called “freezing out,” a favorite manipulative tactic of my mother’s. It’s a very messed up thing to do to someone, especially children. She would act like the one who “wronged” her wasn’t there, while acting normal with the others. It could have been a very minor thing, but if she was hurt, she was vicious. Kelly’s children have the right to refuse hugs. The fact that she feels the need to punish them for it says it all!
If my parents were constantly talking about me on national TV, I’d be pissed too.
That is absurd behavior from a grown woman. Your kids are not under obligation to fulfill your emotional needs.
Giving them the silent treatment? Manipulative beyond belief.
My mother was like this. She and my dad are still married, have always lived together with us, but my mom treated us kids like her new, younger spouses, meant to fulfill her emotional needs and be constantly on call for whatever “crisis” or drama she was going through. And she wanted to constantly hug, cuddle, have us lie down with our heads in her lap, and it was so awkward and annoying, especially as we became teenagers and didn’t want to do that with her anymore. Kelly should ask her husband for hugs when she needs them. Your kids have their own emotional needs, boundaries, and ideas about personal space and who should be entering their space. They’re at an age when they want to distance themselves, socially, physically, emotionally from their parents. They probably feel like just by being at home 24/7 they’re already “there for her” and spending more than enough time with her. And they want their space. Which is NORMAL.
Yeah, she’s really not helping things by not speaking to them. Not to mention, she should be modeling more mature behavior to them. They’re not young kids but this is still a really scary and sad time for that age and she should be the grownup trying to help them manage in a healthy way. Sigh. It’s hard.
I have no more words for this kind of manipulative cr*p.
I’m not speaking to my 14yo right now lol. But it’s not because he won’t give me a hug! He’s giving me grief every single time I ask him to log into his school and complete one or two assignments. “Mom, they’re not even grading yet. Geesh, lay off.” Oh rrrrrreaaaaalllly.
Ugh. Whenever I ask my 15 year old about any assigned work, he tells me in a singsong voice, “Not mandatory until next week!” 🙄
I don’t watch their show, but I have seen clips of her sharing really private stuff about her kids. That combined with this story makes her seem very difficult. There seems to be no respect for feelings or boundaries. Sounds like a super fun house right now.
Take note Kelly: the silent treatment is abusive. No wonder your kids won’t hug you.
It’s so abusive. When my mom was a child (like ten years old) my grandmother would get mad at my mom and not speak to her for days at a time. My mom said it was torture.
Maybe Kelly is exaggerating? I hope…
My former spouse does this with our children. Granted teenage girls can be a handful, but it falls on us, their parents to be reasonable and able to work through our issues and not let them trickle down. The most damaging aspect is the way it’s effected his relationship with all three and his failure to notice what his actions are doing. I never withhold affection or let their actions slide, but having grown up in an abusive household (as did he), I try my damnest not repeat history.
Children need to know their parents love them with verbal and physical affirmations.
My mother gives me the silent treatment from time to time ..,sadly I view it as a break as it relieves me from listening to her complaining about her life..
if I relied on my relationship with my mother to feel healthy I never would ( feel healthy that is). And I also remember my grandmother doing this to my mother. I am so breaking this pattern with my children. ; )
Yeah, she’s supposed to be the adult, and even though her kids aren’t small, she’s still the parents, and they’re children in the relationship.
I would be sympathetic if it was the thoughtless teenagers refusing to talk to their mom, or if she said she cried when they dodged her hug. Those are normal mom reactions to also fairly normal teen behavior. But that she’s a 49-year-old woman giving her own kids the silent treatment over something so petty? She sounds like the stroppy teen, not her offspring. And then to go on TV and get tearful about it? Manipulative AF.
Kelly is best friends with Andy Cohen another narcissist, so where is Mark, bet he is hiding in the kitchen, because it’s the one room he knows she will not enter voluntarily.
I wouldn’t speak to her either.
I’ve never liked how she talks about her daughter. She says such demeaning things about her on live television. So this doesn’t shock me.
The look on both men’s faces in that last photo… “Oh no, what did we say THIS time – is she gonna blow?”
I read this story somewhere yesterday and it sounded like Kelly was in the midst of “aRip-roarin” perimenopause moment. I hope her family survives, bless her ‘lil heart.
I get missing people, I really want to hug my parents too. But trying to force her kids to hug her, and then refusing to speak to them when they won’t, is both childish and manipulative. And then telling the world about it!
I think it’s ok, and probably helpful, to say that it’s hard being quarantined together (especially for college aged kids who were just getting a lot of freedom) but this kind of talk helps no one and just makes her look a little nuts.
Honestly, she is the Violet Weston (google it) of morning television and I’m on the side of the kids. She’s bullying and ruthless and I find her caterwauling really manipulative. How many times has their mother skewered them on the air? In particular, Lola. Those kids deserve privacy and they don’t need their needy mother going on a syndicated talk show whining and crying about them.
I don’t watch her dumb show, but I have caught bits and pieces of it over the years and I always thought she was out of line for discussing her kids on the air. I always wondered how they must feel having their flaws and defects put out there for commercial purposes. Like, advertisers buy airtime based on that shit and people tune in for it. Therefore, I have no doubt that she never asked their permission or sat them down to talk about the rules and parameters of what they would be comfortable with her discussing about them on the air.
That’s why I have a hard and fast rule. I never, ever talk about my son in public. Like EVER. I have a somewhat visible role, certainly not to the extent that she is a public figure, but regardless of what I do for a living he deserves privacy and he doesn’t need his mother putting him on blast. Whatever goes on at home falls within the domain of our privacy and nobody needs to know our business.
As it is, she is the *last* person on Earth I’d want to be cooped up with and I’m sure those kids are in their rooms tying sheets together and plotting their escape from Violet as we speak.
And who could blame them?
Glad I’m not quarantined with Kelly Ripa! Her daughter is gorgeous though, I always wonder if the weird comments Kelly makes about Lola has something to do with underlying jealousy.
This is such a complicated, unimaginable time. Both my daughter and myself were sick, and it was incredibly isolating. I am so unhappy to see how ugly and unkind everyone is getting here. The continuous belittling….I feel terrible for her. My daughter is sometimes so aggressively mean to me right now because she is frightened and does not know how to channel her feelings. I think a bit of kindness towards EVERYONE who is feeling emotional or scared would go a long way.
I wish two of my kids would stop talking to me for five minutes. That’s all I ask.
In all seriousness, though, she sounds manipulative.
THIS!!! 10,000%. Mine are littler (12 and 7) and they never. stop. talking.
Actually, I am glad that we are all safe and healthy together, and grateful for that. But I would be lying if I said I didn’t miss my office (currently set up at one end of the dining room table, in prime real estate for “mom, mama, mom, mom, mommy, mom, mom” all day long) and I miss my quiet commute. 😉
Ugh Kelly makes everything about her. Maybe she should be grateful that her family is healthy and she has a nice house to isolate in. She reminds me of the mom in The Goldbergs who always wants hugs from her grown children. I guess Kelly doesn’t care about what her kids feel.
Her son’s graduation is not about her either. If he is happy not to have it (I never went to my high school or university grad ceremonies), then she should care. It is not about her.
If my mom overshares every little negative thing about me on tv I wouldn’t be that loving toward her either. I know Kathie Lee used to talk about her kids but they were always positive stories. Kelly just embarrasses them with this stuff. Bashing them On live tv won’t Endear them either
maybe kelly is a dramaqueen…..maybe her kids are jerks…..who knows….? sucks living in a covid19 world…..
Ugh. Yes the silent treatment is so childish. Be a parent and lead by example. My mom and her sisters can be childish. My aunt didn’t talk to her daughter for 10 years! Whenever my mom and I get in a fight though, and that’s not very often, my dad would always make us talk it out.
She needs a hug?!? Boo hoo! What about some of us whose parents have already died, we have no siblings or children?!? She doesn’t get her way so she manipulates…Wow.
So my take from this is that Kelly is passive aggressive.
The kids are upset they are trapped with a narcissistic asshole. The only way you can protest is little things like not hugging every time it’s demanded.
Kelly seems exhausting to live with, everything is me, me, me all the time.
No Means No is true in this case too, IMO.
Not talking to them? Grow the hell up! You are the adult, Kelly.
Ask your Husband for hugs/comfort.
Forced shows of affections, against one persons will = No.
OK, I admit I despise people who tell me “You look like you need a hug.”
Back off! Do.Not.Touch.Me.
I’d rather eat glass than be stuck with her anywhere let alone isolation.