Kelly Ripa, 53, had only been dating her All My Children co-star Mark Consuelos, 52, for less than a year when they eloped to Las Vegas in 1996, and during that time they had briefly split.
The Live with Kelly and Mark stars may be the picture of marital bliss today, but they went their separate ways days before their wedding. Kelly explained on the Comments by Celebs podcast: "We broke up and we got back together the day before we went off and eloped. Yeah, we eloped. We went to Vegas and got married."
Mark admitted that Kelly drove him "crazy" with her lack of communication during their break-up. He joked on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen that he "stalked her" in order to talk to her, and their split ultimately made their relationship stronger.
"We both had to meet and do an appearance on 'Live With Regis and Kathie Lee'... and when we were together [Kelly] wouldn’t talk to me and that made me go crazy," the Riverdale actor began. "So I followed her in Central Park – I stalked her, and then we went back to my place, and then we got married the next day."
They decided to tie the knot on a whim, making the most of their rare holiday days and spending just $179 on a "very regular wedding."
"Two consecutive days off from work, both on the same day. And it was like, 'Let's go to Vegas and get married and it'll be fun,'" Kelly recalled on LIVE with Kelly and Mark. "It was '96 guys, remember the winter of '96? The winter of '96 is in the record books as the most miserable, it was an endless winter, and it was a snowstorm when we left.
"And we looked at the weather because we thought about going to City Hall but that was still cold and miserable, whereas Las Vegas, it was 85 degrees and sunny. 'Let's do that!' And so that's what we did," she said, adding their low budget included their airfare.
They are now parents to three children: Michael, 24, Lola, 21, and Joaquín, 19, but they have ruled out ever exchanging vows again for "superstitious" reasons.
"We are very superstitious about vow renewals," the mother-of-three said. They both revealed they associate second weddings with a knee-jerk reaction to try and fix an unhappy relationship or one where someone has made a big mistake.
Kelly described vow renewals as the "kiss of death" and added: "I just feel like a vow renewal is a pre-divorce. It’s like, 'We’re not getting along... I know what we should do!'"
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