Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos Joke About ‘Gray Divorce’

Kelly Ripa is joking about wanting a “gray divorce” from her husband, Mark Consuelos.

Ripa, 54, openly talked about the subject during the Friday, October 11, episode of Live With Kelly and Mark.

“I was reading this article, and I started talking to Mark about it, and Mark got very defensive,” Ripa began, noting that Consuelos, 53, asked, “‘Why are you reading that article?’”

Explaining that she was killing time at the airport when she began reading the “fascinating” piece about the uptick in gray divorces over the years, Ripa said that her interest was piqued after she learned that the percentage of couples getting divorced over the age of 50 has nearly quadrupled in the last few decades.

“Back in 1990, only 8.7 percent of marriages among people over 50 ended in divorce. And by 2019, that number had jumped to 36 percent,” she said, adding that some of the reasons included empty nest syndrome, infidelity, lack of common interests, health problems and more.

Ripa went on to explain that she found herself pondering the idea of a gray divorce, but not because her and Consuelos’ relationship is rocky. Noting that she listened to the article, the longtime daytime talk show host attributed the narrator’s tranquil voice as to why she started thinking, “Oh, I want one.”

She continued, “Like, it sounds like something amazing, and then you realize, ‘Oh, this is very dark subject matter.’ But the voice of the narrator is so soothing.”

Consuelos and Ripa’s love story is one for the books. Their romance began on the set of All My Children in 1995 when the soap opera was looking to cast a love interest for her character.

“They didn’t want a dark-haired guy, they wanted a Latino actor. So I had auditioned every Latino actor in the city and around the city and then California,” Ripa dished during a SiriusXM interview in August 2018, recalling that All My Children casting director Judy Blye Wilson ended the search once and for all after finding Consuelos.

“[Judy] showed me his picture,” she recalled, adding, “When I saw him, the photograph of him, I saw my entire future with him flash before [my eyes]. Like, I saw it. I [didn’t] believe in any of that and now I do because of that moment.”

The pair instantly became inseparable and eloped in Las Vegas in 1996. Together they share three children: sons Michael, 27, and Joaquin, 21, and daughter Lola, 23.

While speaking exclusively to Us Weekly in 2019, Consuelos gushed about his relationship with Ripa, telling Us that he’s absolutely “crazy about” his wife.

“She’s an extremely patient and a tolerant woman, and I think that’s the true secret to our marriage,” he said before detailing another one of their marriage secrets: communication.

He added, “I like to hear from her, she likes to hear from me.”