Kelly Ripa says her husband,Mark Consuelos , was paid more on "All My Children ."- She said they both had no acting experience but he was "immediately" making more money than her.
- Ripa told Bustle the
pay gap between her and her husband has "bothered me ever since."
Kelly Ripa says she is "bothered" that her husband, Mark Consuelos, got paid more than her on ABC's "All My Children," even though the two had the same level of acting experience when they each separately joined the long-running soap.
Ripa and Consuelos, who now share three children, met on the set of the ABC soap opera in 1995 and got married the following year. Ripa started playing the character Hayley Vaughan on the show in 1990, while Consuelos joined the cast as Mateo Santos five years later. Hayley and Mateo were married on the show in 1997 (and then again in 2000), making Ripa and Consuelos both on- and off-screen spouses.
Reflecting on their time together on "All My Children," Ripa told Bustle in an interview published Monday that the differences in her and Consuelos' pay on the show bothered her.
"I watched my husband who had no acting experience when he got his job at 'All My Children,' much the same way I had no acting experience," Ripa said. "But I got my job in 1990 and I think he got his job in '95. And he was paid more than me immediately. It was immediate."
"I just couldn't believe how quickly they were willing to pay the man more than the woman," she continued.
The "Live with Kelly and Ryan" host added: "It's bothered me ever since."
Ripa also told Bustle that it's taken her three decades at the same company (ABC) to earn everything she has, including the ability to now speak out about the pay gap between her and Consuelos on "All My Children."
Ripa's representatives told Insider they have no further comments beyond what Ripa shared with Bustle. Representatives for ABC didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
Ripa and Consuelos exited as regular cast members on the popular daytime soap at the same time in 2002. Soon after, Ripa started appearing as a cohost on the talk show "Live with Regis and Kelly" alongside Regis Philbin.
"All My Children" aired on ABC for 41 years from 1970 to 2011, until its cancellation due to poor ratings. It had a brief run as a web series on Hulu in 2013, but that was canceled again the same year.
A primetime "All My Children" spin-off, titled "Pine Valley" and executive-produced by Ripa and Consuelos, is reportedly in the works at ABC, with Deadline reporting in December that while there are no plans for the original cast to sign on, they might be invited back as guest stars.
Ripa also said that she and Consuelos had different experiences as the parents of a newborn
In the same Bustle interview published Monday, Ripa also said that after the birth of their firstborn, Michael, in 1997, her life changed drastically while "Mark's life stayed exactly the same."
"When you can't make it to brunch or you're not going out to dinner at 10 p.m. anymore, your friends lose interest in asking," Ripa told the publication about her life with a newborn.
"And Mark was still going, he was still traveling. He would still go to Italy on the weekend to go watch Formula 1, to give you an example," she continued, talking about Consuelos as a new dad.
She added: "It never occurred to me that that would be strange. Nowadays I would say, 'Are you out of your mind?'"
Ripa is no stranger to getting candid about her marriage, including speaking out about some of the less glamorous parts.
In April, she told the "Double Date" podcast that Consuelos threw her wedding ring out the window in the first year of their marriage, and noted that many people might have called it quits after that.
"It was, like, coming from a place of terror and genuine fear and, 'Oh, my God. I have to spend the rest of my life with this woman who does not value time, who is chronically late,'" Ripa said about Consuelos.
"I looked at him, and I said, 'I get it. I'm young and married and I'm scared, too. I get it. This is forever. I'm with you,'" she added. "Now we have to go find this ring."