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Regis Philbin Explains Six-Year Estrangement From Kelly Ripa

By Victoria Miller
Published on: 22:10 PST, Feb 15, 2017

Regis Philbin says he hasn’t talked to his former morning show co-host, Kelly Ripa, since the day he left the Live! With Regis and Kelly show in 2011. In an interview on Larry King Now, which can be seen below, Philbin said Ripa took his exit from the long-running talk show personally and has not asked him back since.

“She got very offended when I left,” Regis told King. “She thought I was leaving because of her. I was leaving because I was getting older and it wasn’t right for me anymore.”

Regis Philbin hosted Live! alongside Kelly Ripa for 10 years, from 2001 – 2011. But in the six years since his tear-filled farewell episode, Regis says “never once” was he asked back to the show that he hosted for 28 years—not even as a guest.

“I do miss it,” Philbin admitted to King. “There are times when I really miss it and wish I’d never stopped. But, you know, I just figured it was time to let go.”

This is not the first time Regis Philbin has revealed that his relationship with Kelly is now non-existent. According to Us Weekly, in 2015, Philbin told pal Hoda Kotb that he hadn’t kept in touch with his longtime co-host.

“I haven’t seen her,” Philbin revealed on Kotb’s Sirius XM Show. “I don’t see her… No, I haven’t.”

Regis tried to blame the logistics of the Big Apple for the fact that he hasn’t run into his former morning show partner.

“She lived downtown, and now I hear she’s on the East Side and, uh, you know,” Philbin told Hoda.

Kelly Ripa hasn’t commented on her strained relationship with Regis Philbin, but shortly after the TV veteran left their morning show she told the Huffington Post

“Of course [I miss him],” Ripa told HuffPo in 2012.

“Everybody misses Regis. It’s so funny. I still feel like I see him all the time because he’s always on Letterman or Craig Ferguson. His story never gets old, they never bore me. Just hearing his voice gets me excited.”

Regis Philbin had great chemistry with Ripa during their 10-year Live! stint. The duo seemed to have a father-daughter relationship and they always made headlines for their hilarious Halloween costumes. But that all ended when Ripa reportedly learned Philbin was leaving the show just 20 minutes before they began a live taping of his retirement announcement.

Regis Philbin was replaced by Michael Strahan in 2012 after an exhaustive co-host search, and when he ultimately left Live! last May, it didn’t go over well with Ripa, who was blindsided by the announcement that Regis’ replacement was moving to Good Morning America. Ripa called out sick the day after Strahan’s news went public and later returned to deliver an emotional speech about “respect in the workplace.”

Regis later weighed in on the way Live! handled Strahan’s announcement, telling Entertainment Tonight that Michael Gelman and the rest of the show’s producers “should have told her in the beginning.”

Philbin also took himself out of the running as a potential replacement fort, making it clear that his retirement from the morning show is for good.

“She has got a bunch of people that she likes,” Philbin said. “Whoever it is, God bless them. Regis has had enough. Twenty-eight years there, 25 more in Hollywood before I came here. I’m done.”

While Regis Philbin hasn’t kept in touch with Ripa, the same can’t be said of the TV veteran’s relationship with his previous Live! co-host, Kathie Lee Gifford. Regis has maintained a close relationship with Kathie Lee long after their 12-year co-hosting stint ended in 2000.

[Featured Image by Rob Kim/Getty Images]

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