After making waves with her absence on LIVE! With Kelly and Michael Wednesday, Kelly Ripa and her husband, Mark Consuelos, have been spotted in New York City. She appeared to be all smiles as she left her townhouse.
She will be absent from her morning talk show until at least Tuesday, as Erin Andrews and Shay Mitchell will fill in for the star while she's on vacation. Her spotting comes two days after Michael Strahan announced he would be leaving the show to join Good Morning America full-time. A source told E! News that Kelly was angry when she heard the news at the same time as everybody else.
"She was livid," a source told us exclusively. "It wasn't pretty."
Executives sat Kelly down in a meeting after her show had taped Tuesday morning and informed her. Michael joined Kelly and others in the meeting. "He wanted to be there. He didn't have to be, but he didn't want to have her hear it and not be there," the source said. "He tried to do the stand up thing."
While she's absent from the show, she and Mark will fly to Turks and Caicos to enjoy an already-planned vacation with their kids. Perhaps an early 20th wedding anniversary celebration? Despite any behind-the-scenes drama that might be lurking, Michael has remained his upbeat self on the air.
"I'm ready. I need some tips on how to wake up early every day. That's going to be first and foremost, but it's like my second family here," he said on GMA this morning. "I'm going to miss everybody at Live!," Michael, 44, admitted. "I've been sitting next to Kelly every day and having a lot of fun on that show for the last four years. I'm very thankful for her—to her—because I learned so much from her."
He credited his LIVE! co-host, 45, with teaching him everything he knows about life on a morning show. "I was so new to all of this. If it weren't for her, if it weren't for [executive producer] Michael Gelman and the staff there that really boosted me up and made me look a lot better than I really am, I never would have had a chance to be here," he said. "But I'm grateful that I'm here. And we're on the same network. I'm just right over here a little bit earlier now, but we're the same team, same family, same network."