It’s been nearly three years since Michael Strahan made the controversial decision to walk away from his position as cohost of Kelly Ripa‘s Live! In that time, he’s become a regular host on Good Morning America, and Ryan Seacrest has taken his old spot at Ripa’s side. In a new interview, Strahan revealed that he and Ripa haven’t spoken since he left Live! in 2016.
“I haven’t spoken to her in a long time,” Strahan told Time magazine in its upcoming Feb. 4 issue, according to People. He added, “I learned through all that went down with that, you can’t convince people to like you.”
People reported that Strahan and Ripa’s relationship was “irreparably damaged” when he suddenly announced his intention to leave Live! for a position on GMA in April 2016. Ripa took a week off from the show as news broke that she hadn’t been given a heads-up about Strahan’s decision. Both she and Strahan addressed the controversy in separate interviews with People in 2016.
In May of that year, after Strahan’s departure from the show was moved up, Ripa told People, “There’s a part of me that can say, ‘OK, I understand. This may have been an oversight.'” She noted that after 26 years working with ABC, “at this point we are like a family. And sometimes when you are so comfortable with somebody, you may not give them the same consideration as somebody you’re not as comfortable with — a certain formality falls away.”
View this post on Instagram
Meanwhile, in October 2016, Strahan told People, “The most disappointing thing to me was that I was painted as the bad guy, because I value the way I carry myself. I don’t want people to see me as ‘Oh, he just ran out, just left them there.’ That’s just not true.”
From the sounds of it, their falling-out wasn’t resolved at all. Although Strahan and Ripa have both had great success since going their separate ways, it’s sort of sad to know that their friendship was a casualty of that progress.
Leave a Comment