Kelly Ripa Reveals Her Empty Nest Plan with Mark Consuelos: 'We're Going to Be Totally Naked'
No kids at home means no clothes on for Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos.
Ripa, 49, told PEOPLE Now on Wednesday that once her and Consuelos’ youngest child Joaquin, 16, heads off to college, the couple will be baring it all around the house.
“We’re going to be totally naked,” the talk show host joked. “At all times. We are going to change the locks. People are like, ‘Oh, you’re gonna miss the kids.’ I’m like, ‘I don’t know, I wanna experiment with it. See how that goes.’ “
Ripa and Consuelos’ two older children live out of the household: son Michael, 22, resides in Brooklyn, while daughter Lola, 18, is a freshman at New York University.
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The Live with Kelly and Ryan host also shared how the couple’s marriage has continued to thrive after 24 years.
“We encourage each other,” she said. “I hate when people say this — because it sounds so dumb — but we are best friends and we love each other and we like each other and we’ve got these beautiful, amazing kids and we feel very fortunate to have found, in this great big world with all these people, we’re just two kids. He’s from Italy, I’m from south Jersey, what are the chances we would find each other?”
Earlier this month, Ripa revealed that her husband had surprised her with a bouquet of roses to celebrate the 26th anniversary of the day they first met.
“So sweet. Isn’t that sweet?” Ripa gushed on her ABC talk show. “He brought me five roses. I’m really not sure the significance of the five roses. I didn’t want to split hairs, but I thought it was really sweet.”
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Ripa met Consuelos in 1994 at his screen test for All My Children. At the time, Ripa was playing Hayley Vaughan on the ABC soap opera. Consuelos was auditioning for Mateo Santos, Haley’s love interest.
Following the New Year, Ripa revealed on Live with Kelly and Ryan the advice she’d give to new couples on how to make a marriage last.
“You’re going to fight, you’re going to have disagreements. Relationships, marriages are not sprints, it’s a marathon,” she said in January. “There’s going to be like, mile 24, when you’re like, ‘I quit.’ But you just got to push through. Just push through.”
