Kelly Ripa Explains That Halloween Means 40 Costume Changes On ‘Live’
Kelly Ripa has been talking to Jimmy Kimmel a lot this week. The Late Night host headed to Live! With Kelly and Ryan on September 21 and then Kelly turned up at Jimmy’s show — which is airing in Brooklyn this week — on September 22.
The two explored many topics.
Kelly told Jimmy about her eldest son, Michael, and how he is experiencing “extreme poverty” since graduating from college.
Meanwhile, she said that her youngest son will not be following in either of his siblings’ footsteps by attending the same university as Michael and Lola chose to attend. In other words, 16-year-old Joaquin will not even be allowed to apply to New York University because Kelly considers the Manhattan-based school to be too close to home since he will be learning how to be on his own for the first time.
Another current event that Jimmy questioned Kelly about was how her show will handle Halloween since, every year, her show makes a big deal about the holiday on Live. While the show’s fans look forward to the event, the 50-year-old morning show co-host did not seem all that thrilled. In fact, she told her interviewer that getting ready for the Halloween show “is a pain in the ass.”
Every year, the costume changes are plentiful with this year’s count at 40 different getups. Kelly revealed that all month is spent taping just that one show.
“And we still have to wind up shooting a live show on Thursday [October 31]. You would think we have taped so much that the entire show is on tape but we open the show live and we close the show live,” she told Jimmy.
Kelly then explained that she and her co-host, Ryan Seacrest, use the middle segments — which have already been taped — for the chance to swiftly change costumes.
Kelly noted that a number of Live‘s producers were with her while she appeared on Jimmy’s show. She was concerned because she thought those employees needed to be back at the studio getting ready for another Halloween segment slated to be taped the following day.
“I find each year we try to one-up ourselves,” Kelly said before talking about one Halloween segment that meant she and Ryan were required to ride horses.
“We were… in the middle of a nor’easter [which is a macro-sized cyclone]. Branches were breaking off of trees and the horses were startling and the woman [who owns the performance animals] says, ‘Usually we have about a month before we put [the actors] on the animal.'”
“We’re not actors,” she emphatically stated.
“If Ryan falls off that horse, six shows go down,” Jimmy quipped in response.
“I mean, the entire network [ABC] collapses. All they have left is you and me,” Kelly added.
No matter what happens, the Halloween show on Live is fun to watch, as Jimmy so graciously pointed out.
To stay updated on Kelly Ripa’s adventures on and off the small screen, follow the morning show co-host on her Instagram account.
