Kelly Ripa reveals she 'had a difficult time' while working in 'Live with Regis' due to gender disparity
NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: Kelly Ripa, the ‘Live!’ talk show host has joined the list of Hollywood celebrities who are revealing the discrimination they had to face in their workplaces in the media industry. Ripa, 52, recently divulged about the ill-treatment she received from the showrunners of the ‘Live! with Regis’ when she joined the crew in 2001. As she revealed, “I had a really difficult time,” until her resilience won over.
In a recent interview given to Variety, the ‘All My Children’ star revealed the gender bias she was subjected to when she was first hired to host the show with Regis Philbin after the co-host Kathie Lee Gifford left. She starts by saying how she was deprived by the ABC management of proper office space and that she had to use the “broom closet”. “It was the strangest experience I’ve ever had in my life. I was told that I couldn’t have an office,” shared the morning television star. She further added, “It didn’t make a whole lot of sense, especially because there were empty offices that I could have easily occupied”.
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“It was after my fourth year that they finally cleaned out the closet and put a desk in there for me. And so I was working in the janitor’s closet with a desk so that I could have a place to put things,” said Ripa who had to then barge in to get her equal rights.
The ‘Live! With Kelly and Ryan’ host also didn’t get the basic human necessity — access to a proper bathroom. “Picture this,” Ripa said before explaining, “We have a studio audience — like 250 people! — and I have to queue up. Particularly when I was pregnant, it was extraordinarily exhausting to have to wait in line. I have to host the show, and I’m still waiting in line to use the bathroom. It just seemed, you know, a very needlessly difficult situation.”
Even after Philbin’s departure in 2011, and after working a decade with the show, Ripa was not given the status and respect of the main host as the management still denied her a real office. Ripa narrated, “They said, ‘Oh, no, we’re saving that.’ And I said, ‘Saving it for what?’ And they go, ‘Well, for when the new guy comes.’ And I looked at them, and I said, ‘I am the new guy,’” and “I just moved my things. I forced my way into the office because I couldn’t understand how I would still be in the janitor’s closet and somebody new would come in and get the office”.
“Initially, I thought this is just what happens, and they don’t have to fill me in because I’ve only been here 10 years. I’m still the new girl. But then, when I was the more senior on-air person, it was like watching the same movie all over again: All of those offices that were not available to me were suddenly made available, with walls knocked down to make them twice as big. It was fascinating for me to watch — the need to make the new guy comfortable and respected, but I couldn’t use those offices. I had to use the broom closet,” mused Ripa.
The ‘Hope & Faith’ actress, who starred in it alongside her husband Mark Consuelos, also talked about the pay disparity. Talking about the time when her contract was over and the management thought she might otherwise leave if not given a fair salary, they reconsidered their stance. “I don’t think they wanted to pay me,” revealed Ripa before adding, “I think they had to pay me. I was trying to walk out the door and close it behind me. And I think they really figured out rapidly that they had screwed up in a major way, and it was not a good look. I think that was really the impetus behind paying me fairly. They had no choice.”
However, only the network came under her criticism, as she said, “The network had a duty and an obligation to keep all things equal,” before adding that she did not blame her male co-stars, “I don’t blame the fellas — they were just doing what they had been told, or what they were instructed to do, or what they thought they deserved. Having said that, I go out of my way to protect the people I’m working with at any and all costs, even if it means that I am not as popular.”
Who else have spoken out?
Kelly Ripa, with her explosive interview, becomes one of the many to speak out about the disparity. Carey Mulligan in an interview with Vogue Australia said in 2017, “I have felt belittled and I think I've felt kind of lesser-than. I've definitely experienced sexism in terms of how I've been treated.”
Rose McGowan said, "I was literally told I had to have long hair otherwise the men doing the hiring in Hollywood wouldn't want to f--- me and if they didn't want to f--- me, they wouldn't hire me. I was told this by my female agent, which is tragic on many levels. So, so evil and so, so sad," reports i-D.
Halle Berry in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter said, due to her career in modeling and beauty pageants, she was seldom taken seriously, “I had to somehow find ways to shed that persona and to let the industry know that I was to be taken seriously. I had studied acting, I was not just a model who said, 'Oh, now I want to act because what else do I have to do?' It took me years to build that respect within the community”.
What next?
The future, however, does not look so bleak for Ripa as she felt the shift in the culture since 2018 when Debra O’Connell, president of networks for Disney Media & Entertainment Distribution, visited the talk show to understand how it functions. “From my perspective, they’re putting more and more women in positions of power, and women just are, from my experience, more willing to hear and solve problems in real time”. She also credited O’Connell for overhauling the sexist culture of the show. “It really makes a difference when you have people that are behind you who come aboard. It’s powerful.”
With her current co-host Ryan Seacrest announcing his departure from the show, Ripa's husband Mark Consuelos has been roped in as her new permanent co-host.