Leaving it in the past. Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos did not hold back about the challenges they faced at the start of their relationship.
“My biggest complaint about you over the course of our marriage — and this is not recent because it definitely changed — but you used to be insanely jealous and that was a hard pill to swallow,” the Live With Kelly and Ryan host, 52, revealed on an upcoming episode of her “Let’s Talk Off Camera” podcast, which was shared by Entertainment Tonight on Tuesday, March 21.
Ripa, who has been married to Consuelos, 51, since 1996, said it was “very hard” to build a life with someone who was that jealous. During her new podcast, the actress recalled the first time she got upset over her husband’s behavior.
“It was our first week of marriage, because we didn’t take our honeymoon until later. You were working and I went to visit you in Boston,” she recalled. “We went to this Italian restaurant and the waiter was, like, a very cute old man, he’s definitely in his 70s, if not 80s. He leaned down and he said, ‘And for the principessa?’”
The New Jersey native added: “I thought it was so cute that this little old man called me a princess, and I looked at him and I gave him my order in a very smiley way. And he walked away and you picked a horrible fight.”
The Riverdale alum, for his part, argued that his age played a role in the incident. “I remember that. Look at age 25, I was pretty insane,” he shared. “But that jealousy thing definitely followed me for a while. I’m not jealous anymore.”
After Ripa noted how “grateful” she was that Consuelos improved himself, the Spain native broke down what led to the “character flaw” at the time.
“It’s ugly. As ugly as it feels to the person who has to be on the receiving end of it, it’s such an ugly feeling inside. If this is any consolation, you know you’re being crazy. The jealous person knows that this is wrong and it’s ugly, but they can’t help it,” he continued. “I wanted to do some work on myself and that was one of the major things that I needed to work on because it was getting in the way.”
The couple started dating after they met on the set of All My Children in 1995. Ripa and Consuelos eloped in Las Vegas after one year of dating and went on to welcome three kids: Michael, now 25, Lola, now 21, and Joaquin, now 19.
Earlier this month, the pair confirmed that they would be working together again as Consuelos prepares to take over for Ryan Seacrest as Ripa’s new Live cohost. The talk show will be rebranded as Live With Kelly and Mark after Consuelos makes his official debut on Monday, April 17.
“We figured that since we started our careers together, we might as well finish them together,” the duo, who have worked on several onscreen projects together over the years, exclusively told Us Weekly in March. “We figured the idea ‘what could possibly go wrong?’ is something we’d definitely like to explore. Now, we have the chance.”
