The Live With Kelly and Mark co-host revealed she had treated herself to a gift for her mother to replace a treasured keepsake from her childhood.
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Kelly Ripa and her mother Esther Ripa on October 12, 2015 in Hollywood, California.
Kelly Ripa just announced her unusual first big purchase!
The Live with Kelly and Mark Co-host shared during the April 24 episode of Ripa’s Let’s talk off camera Podcast: What was your first luxury purchase at the beginning of your career?
The 53-year-old television and podcast presenter explained to producers Jan Schillay and Albert Bianchini that she gave her mother Esther an unexpected and “strange” gift.
Instead of a more traditional gift like jewelry or clothing, Ripa announced that she spent her early income on a white piano for her mother, now 82 years old.
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Kelly Ripa and her mother Esther Ripa.
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Then Bianchini asked Ripa if her mother played the piano.
Her mother doesn’t play the instrument, Ripa said, but her grandmother “always had a piano” and played the piano herself. Ripa joked that she and her sister Linda “have taken piano lessons for 180 years and still don’t play the piano,” adding, “But that’s our failure; that’s not my mother’s failure.”
Ripa explained that after her grandmother died, her mother redecorated the house and “certain things just disappeared from the house.” She then said that as part of the “renovation” and “modernization,” her grandmother’s piano was also removed.
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Kelly Ripa on April 25, 2024 in New York City.
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The morning talk show host added that she suspected “it was valuable,” and Bianchini added, “I’m sure it was valuable.”
Ripa went on to say that because the piano disappeared, “nothing was ever put back in its place.”
“So my first purchase was a white lacquered piano,” she notes, adding that she bought a Kimball brand piano.
“White pianos are hard to find,” Bianchini added. “This is great. It’s incredible.”
“Well, in South Jersey it’s not,” Ripa joked.
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On Thursday evening, Ripa and her husband Mark Consuelos attended the Time100 Gala as they were one of the TimeThe most influential people for 2024.
“She wrote her best-selling memoir, launched a popular podcast and welcomed a new co-host, her husband of nearly 28 years, Mark Consuelos,” Anderson Cooper wrote in an essay for the magazine. “Would viewers want to watch a happily married couple who raised three really good kids? Yes. The ratings are up and Kelly has never been better.”
New episodes of SiriusXMs Let’s talk off camera with Kelly Ripa are available every Wednesday on the SiriusXM app and wherever podcasts are available.
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