| |||||||||
Kelly Ripa (born October 2, 1970 in Stratford, New Jersey) is an American actress, who hosts Live with Regis and Kelly and also co-stars, with Faith Ford, in Hope and Faith.
Acting in high school plays led to roles at local theaters, where she was noticed and cast as gothic teen Hayley Vaughan on the soap opera All My Children. Starting on the show in 1990, she was mostly a minor character until she was paired with Christopher Lawford's character, Charlie Brent, in a May-December relationship. Later, she was paired with Mark Consuelos' character, Mateo Santos. A romance blossomed between the castmates and Ripa married Consuelos in 1996. Eventually, she gave birth to three of his children. In a mutual decision, the couple left the show: Consuelos last aired as Mateo in 2002 and Ripa last aired as Hayley in 2003.
On Saturday Night Live skits about Live with Regis and Kelly, the role of Kelly Ripa is often taken by Amy Poehler. When Ripa hosted SNL, in one skit Poehler appeared as Ripa and Ripa as Angelina Jolie. In another skit, Ripa spoofed the ubiquitous hair coloring ads in which she has appeared (in this skit, Ripa prefers Tressant Suprème because a main ingredient is crack cocaine, thus explaining her stereotypical "peppy" persona).
She has also made fun of herself on Family Guy, voicing herself. In the episode "Family Guy Viewer Mail #1", Peter Griffin found a genie in a beer bottle and his first wish was to see Kelly Ripa behind the scenes. The genie opened a magic window onto Ripa's Live with Regis and Kelly dressing room, showing Ripa ripping off her human face to show an ugly alien face, then going to a tied-up human, removing his heart and eating it.