Kelly Ripa is opening up about two rather, um, unexpected encounters she had with her daughter, Lola Consuelos, as a child.
On Wednesday’s episode of her Let’s Talk Off Camera podcast, Ripa recalled Lola walking in on her parents as they were having sex ― twice. To make matters worse, both incidents took place on Lola’s birthday, eight years apart.
The first time, Ripa said, took place on a family vacation in Italy just as Lola was about to turn 8. Ripa and husband Mark Consuelos hadn’t had any “special grown-up time” on the trip, so they decided to seize an opportunity to be intimate when they thought the rest of their family had gone to sleep, she said.
“Mark and I went to bed, and he’s like: ‘It’s now or never,’” Ripa said. “All I know is, at a certain point, I made eye contact with my 8-year-old daughter, who was standing at the foot of the bed. And Mark vanished.”
She went on to add: “So now I’m looking at Lola, who’s looking at me, and she’s like: ‘I’m thirsty.’ And I was like: ‘Me too.’”
Ripa was able to console Lola after that first incident, but she said it was a much different experience when it happened again eight years later, as her daughter was turning 16.
“[It was] literally the same exact thing, where she just threw the door open,” she said. “This time, she said, ‘Oh my God! My life is over ... how could you do this to me, on my birthday? What is wrong with you people?’”
As for the moral of the story, Ripa quipped: “She never learned to knock.”
Consuelos joined Ripa as the permanent co-host of ABC’s newly renamed US daytime talk show Live with Kelly and Mark this spring. In addition to Lola, now 22, the couple are parents to sons Michael, 26, and Joaquin, 18.
Speaking to E! News in June, Ripa said she and Consuelos had to reestablish boundaries with their three children when they returned home for the summer ― and that includes going to “lengths” to ensure time for romantic endeavors.
“Mark and I had gotten into our habits of just sort of wandering around as we please, you know, leaving the doors open as we please,” she said. “And then, lo and behold, Lola comes back from London and now we’ve gotta lock it up again. Joaquin came home for his summer break, and we had to lock it up again.”