‘Live’: Kelly Ripa & Mark Consuelos Have Theory Why They Always Get Sick During Holidays

Ripa noted that it’s not stress that causes her and Consuelos to fall ill around the holidays. “I just think my body knows, like, ‘You don’t have to be anywhere, so you will now get that virus that everybody else had. It’s now your time,’” she said.

To back her point, Ripa recalled a not-so-pleasant memory from a few years ago. “Right at the beginning of COVID, we had winter break here. And there was a second outbreak of COVID,” she told viewers. “We tape our final show, and you [Michael Gelman] called me immediately, like, two hours later, and you go, ‘Just so you know, when we come back from winter break, we’re not coming back to the studio because there’s another outbreak of COVID and we’re closing down the building again.”

As soon as she got home from the taping, Ripa said that her and Consuelos’ kids each tested positive for COVID “one by one.” Consuelos, himself, also contracted the virus at the time. “I put everybody in lockdown individually,” Ripa shared. “They go into deep lockdown.” (The couple share kids Michael, 28, Lola, 24, and Joaquin, 22.)

She continued, “Andy Cohen calls me, and he goes, ‘Just bite the bullet and get COVID and get it over with. You’re the last person on Earth to have COVID. Get COVID.’ And I, with my mask and my hazmat suit on and rubber gloves in the house, I said, ‘If you think I am going to get sick during my already scheduled time off instead of maximizing my time off by getting COVID during a work week, you are wrong.’”

Ripa managed to stay COVID-free for the remainder of break, but spent the holidays “alone” as her family recovered. On Live, Consuelos pointed out that Ripa didn’t get COVID “for the longest time.”

“I didn’t get it for a really long time, to the point where I got it and I was in denial that I had it,” Ripa confirmed. “I was like, ‘That’s got to be a false positive. But I, in fact, had it. But it was during the work week, so yay me.”

Earlier this week, Ripa revealed on Live that she is “way behind” on purchasing Christmas gifts for her family. “I am usually done by now. I have not begun,” she stated on the show’s Thursday, December 4, episode.

Consuelos offered a solution to her holiday stress, suggesting that they don’t need to purchase presents for each other this year. Ripa was down with the idea, as she went on to joke, “That’s actually two less gifts, ‘cause I don’t have to get your gift, and I don’t have to get the gift that you give me,” she quipped. “So, it’s like real freedom.”

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