Kelly Ripa Reflects On Michael Strahan Feud Amid Reports Ryan Seacrest Wasn’t Her First Choice

Kelly Ripa is reflecting on her feud drama with Michael Strahan amid reports new co-host Ryan Seacrest supposedly wasn’t her first choice as his permanent replacement.

Ripa got candid about the reported feud between herself and Strahan that hit the headlines after he quit Live with Kelly and Michael last April for a permanent role on Good Morning America, revealing how she was “left out” of the decision-making process and left to pick up the pieces from Michael’s departure.

“Everybody at a certain point in their career, or even in their lives, has felt left out of major decisions and major conversations,” Ripa said of the way Michael’s Live with Kelly and Michael departure was handled in a new interview with Washington Post.

“I think that was the reason that people really responded to it the way they did — because it’s so much a part of everybody’s life at some point,” Ripa mused of the drama that surrounded Live.

Kelly then went on to discuss the aftermath of Michael’s decision to leave the morning show, which reportedly caused a nasty feud between the former co-hosts.

“I was just trying to steady this family,” Ripa confessed of how she continued on with the show, which is now titled Live with Kelly and Ryan after Ryan Seacrest was announced as her permanent co-host this week. “I was trying to just be like: ‘Okay, the ship got turned around. We’re going to turn it back around and keep going on course.'”

Kelly Ripa also dished on the problems being a co-host on Live with Kelly and Ryan has brought to her door since she first began starring on the ABC show with Regis Philbin way back in 2001, addressing claims made by Hollywood Life that suggested Ripa was contemplating quitting the show altogether over the drama that was Strahan’s leaving.

“That’s the thing that I think is funny, when people are like: ‘You have a cushy job. You couldn’t possibly have any problems.’ Trust me, they don’t take your humanity away just because you work on TV,” Kelly admitted, but seemingly hinted that she decided not to quit the show because of her co-workers.

“I’m mindful that I’m not the only person that works here,” Ripa said in the candid new interview, hinting at reports last May that suggested she may have been considering quitting the show altogether due to the way Strahan’s departure was handled.

“This is a group. And you have to take care of the group. This show is bigger than just me.”

Kelly and Michael sparked serious feud rumors after his departure from Live with Kelly and Michael was confirmed last April before he then appeared on his final show just weeks later in May.

Sources told TMZ at the time that the co-hosts’ tension was “palpable” as Michael geared up for his final day on the Live set, mere weeks after the site claimed that Ripa was “blindsided” by Strahan’s decision to quit and was left seriously unhappy with the way producers handled his exit without consulting her.

Kelly’s latest confessions about her more than 16-year run on Live come just days after it was claimed that her new co-host Ryan Seacrest allegedly wasn’t her first choice to take over for Michael.

Though both Ripa and Seacrest have appeared cordial when the cameras are rolling, a source alleged to Radar Online this week that Kelly supposedly wanted someone less famous that Ryan to take the seat beside her.

“[Ripa] preferred someone less well-known,” an insider alleged, claiming that Ryan supposedly wasn’t Kelly’s first choice in a permanent co-host. “She wanted someone that she could boss around, and that isn’t Ryan. [Seacrest is] as big of a star as she is!”

However, the site’s insider noted that the decision wasn’t Ripa’s to make and that the choice to bring Ryan onto the show as Strahan’s permanent replacement was “ultimately [ABC president] Ben Sherwood’s call.”

What do you think of Kelly Ripa’s confessions about the feud drama Michael Strahan’s shock exit from Live with Kelly and Michael caused?

[Featured Image by Santiago Felipe/Getty Images for VH1 & Logo Communications]