- Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos spoke about their relationship on her podcast, "Let's Talk Off Camera."
- They recalled how they maintained intimacy while he worked in Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Kelly Ripa and her husband, Mark Consuelos, said they had "ludicrous" sex rituals to stay intimate while filming in different cities during the pandemic.
The couple shared details during Wednesday's episode of Ripa's podcast, "Let's Talk Off Camera," which featured their marriage counselor. Ripa said the pandemic caused her and Consuelos to spend more time together than they had throughout their marriage.
"But then soon, like after the first wave, went back to work," Consuelos said. "I was stuck in Canada for close to 10 months and we saw each other maybe two weeks over 10 months."
Their marriage counselor asked them how they survived long-term separation in their marriage, prompting Ripa to mention her and Consuelos' FaceTime "rituals."
"We had sexual rituals that were so ludicrous over FaceTime, but I became so alarmed at my appearance over FaceTime that I started rigging the computer to hang from a ladder," Ripa said. "I'm not kidding. I hung the computer over a ladder so that I could look up to Mark so that he did not have to see what gravity was actually doing."
In the same conversation, Consuelos talked about learning the difference between sex and intimacy just a few weeks before the podcast taping.
"I'm going to blame it on the fact that I traveled so much," Consuelos said. "So a lot had to happen in the time that I was home. Sometimes I'd be home for a week, and so it wasn't so pressed or two weeks, but sometimes I was home for 36 hours."
"I wanted to get the intimacy in and the sex in, and so they became one in the same," he added. "They became one in the same for such a long time."
Ripa and Consuelos married in May 1996 after meeting the year before on the television soap opera, "All My Children." The couple welcomed their first child, Michael, in June 1997, a baby girl named Lola in June 2001, and their youngest child, Joaquin, in February 2003.
In February, Variety reported that the couple would soon be working together after Ryan Seacrest announced his exit from his and Ripa's morning show, "Live with Kelly and Ryan." Seacrest revealed that Consuelos would replace him while taking to the studio audience.
"It's been a memorable ride and now I'm excited to pass the baton to Kelly's 'real' husband, Mark," Seacrest said.