It has been almost a year since Michael Strahan departed as Kelly Ripa’s co-host on LIVE, and we were beginning to think that it would be a one-woman show forever but the times are a changin’ and it was revealed this morning that Ryan Seacrest would be taking over the glamorous role.
Co-host Kelly Ripa has been on the popular morning show since 2001, and yesterday she sent fans into a frenzy by teasing them with the big announcement on her Instagram.
Mocking Beyonce’s now famous pregnancy announcement picture, Kelly captioned the picture with the news that LIVE would be, “growing to two,” and obviously chaos ensued.
Her followers and any fans of the show were going crazy trying to guess who her new co-host would be. Fortunately, they didn’t have to wait too long to find out if their suspicions were correct.
Today’s episode of LIVE will surely go down in television history as just seconds into the show, Kelly stepped out onto the stage with her latest partner in crime and to the on set audience’s delight it was none other than Ryan Seacrest! Yes, we’re screaming too.
“It’s funny because Kelly and I are friends and we’ve known each other for a long time so I couldn’t be more excited,” Ryan said as he took his seat on the show.
The pair then went on to joke about how hard it was to hide the news after telling their families with Kelly joking, “We don’t even call it a secret in our house anymore, we call it a Seacrest.”
You can check out the exciting reveal here:
Your new tag team. #LiveKellyRyan pic.twitter.com/ZrNfGSgxcf
— Ryan Seacrest (@RyanSeacrest) May 1, 2017
Although Kelly has had a number of famous co-hosts sitting beside her since the shock exit of Michael Strahan last year, we don’t think there is anyone more fitting of the job at hand than Ryan Seacrest.
If it’s experience that you want, he has got it in buckets. He previously hosted American Idol for fifteen seasons alongside his two radio shows On Air with Ryan Seacrest and the American Top 40 chart. Ryan also contributes to E!‘s red carpet coverage every year during award season, and who can forget his hand in pretty much every show that airs on E! nowadays?
And if it’s charm that you are looking for, then Ryan has a lot of that too! He proved this once more when Kelly said that she was surprised at how good her children were at keeping their mouths shut about the news in the lead up to the big announcement and Ryan added, “They are better than my mother!”
But what will happen to Ryan’s other work commitments, we hear you ask? Well fear not, as he has confirmed that he will now be bi-coastal. He plans to stay in New York to co-host LIVE for four days a week and then he will travel to Los Angeles where his beloved radio shows are for the other three days.
The name of the show officially became Live with Kelly & Ryan following today’s episode, and it took almost no time at all for the news to spread. The title on the show’s official website, Twitter account, and even their Wikipedia page instantly updated and the reveal started to spread through the media like wildfire.
In a statement which was released following the announcement, Kelly stated, “Ryan is at the top of his game and I am thrilled to start my mornings with him every day. We are so fortunate to have him join the family. Ryan is a close friend and his star shines as brightly off camera as it does on.”
Kelly and Ryan sound like a television match made in heaven and we are super excited to see all of the fun antics they will inevitably be getting into in the coming months.
Make sure you catch them both on Live with Kelly & Ryan every weekday on ABC.
So what do you think about Ryan Seacrest becoming Kelly Ripa’s new co-host? Let us know on Twitter at, @CelebMix.