Things are are looking a bit rocky for Kelly Ripa and Michael Strahan right now after the former NFL player announced that he's leaving LIVE! With Kelly and Michael...but it wasn't always that way.
After Regis Philbin's departure from the show in 2012, ABC announced Michael as his replacement, taking over the seat beside Kelly, who could not have been any happier.
In fact, the moment Michael made his first entrance as the official co-host of the show, Kelly couldn't help but run and jump into his arms out of excitement over the news.
The duo discussed the announcement during an interview on ABC News the following day. Michael laughed while recalling the moment, "I was thinking, 'OK,don't fall.' And Kelly was running at me, and it felt like a movie. And she just leaps, and I catch her and I was like, 'She was really high off the ground.'"
Kelly added, "For a moment, I was like, 'Is my dress covering my bottom?'"
She continued, "It was one of those moments where as I leap into his arms, I remembered a producer had said to me, 'Now remember, stay on your mark because we've got the balloons that are going to fall and the confetti, and we don't want you to run off your mark.' And I'm thinking, 'I ran off my mark and I leaped into his arms and now I'm thinking that I screwed up the entire show.'"
Meanwhile, E! News has learned Kelly was left in the dark regarding the network's decision to take Michael off of LIVE!, only finding out about it after the show's taping on Tuesday.
A source told us exclusively on Wednesday that executives had intentionally kept Kelly and other key staff members out of the loop in order to prevent leaks about Michael's move.
"That was a network decision," the insider explained. "It wasn't an overnight decision and took some time to put it in place."
Michael didn't have a say in the matter either. "He's not the boss," the source explained. "He is an employee of the network."
Thus, Kelly's absence during Wednesday's show should have come as no surprise. "She was livid," the source said. "It wasn't pretty."