Kelly Ripa Reveals Mark Consuelos Was Paid More Than Her on AMC
As one of the queens of morning television talk shows, Kelly Ripa brings home a pretty cushy paycheck, something in the range of $20 million a year, according to the LIVE WITH KELLY AND RYAN co-host’s new cover story with Variety for the magazine’s The Power of Woman issue. But back when she was playing Hayley Vaughan on ALL MY CHILDREN alongside her husband, Mark Consuelos (who played Mateo), Ripa’s says her partner’s salary was “far more” than her own.
“He was paid far more than I was paid. Always,” Ripa revealed. “And he started years after I started.”
Ripa had joined the cast of the ABC soap in November 1990, while Consuelos was hired more than four years later, in February 1995. At the time that each of them was cast, neither Ripa nor Consuelos had any substantial prior acting credits on their resumes.
After Ripa left AMC to take over the co-hosting duties at LIVE (then with Regis Philbin), she became the breadwinner in the household. “It wasn’t until I got what we call my ‘fancy job’ that I started actually earning more money than him,” Ripa admitted.
However, who added what to their joint bank account didn’t matter to Ripa on a personal level. “We have been together so long that it’s always been collective money,” she explained. “We are very much old-fashioned in that sense.”
However, in her professional life, Ripa has had a front-row seat to the pay disparity between men and women for most of her career. “I was used to that pay inequity because that was my life for 15 years — 11 years on AMC and then during the Regis years, certainly,” she continued. “I would expect a man who was at the helm of the show for many years before me to earn a substantial amount more than me. However, there has been a weaponization of my salary, as though I somehow should not ask for the money that the men routinely earn. And I’ve learned that the hard way.”
With Ryan Seacrest departing LIVE! as Ripa’s co-host this spring, Consuelos is slated to take the seat next to his wife in the fall.
