So last week wasn’t about Kelly Ripa throwing a gigantic public hissy fit. No, “Live with Kelly and Michael” viewer, it was about you!
On her return to morning TV after admittedly staging a one-woman job action last week — skipping two days of broadcasts after learning her co-host Michael Strahan was dumping her to join “Good Morning America” — Ripa told the studio audience at Columbus and 66th Street after a lengthy standing ovation that “I needed a couple of days to gather my thoughts.”
Not really. Kelly had only one thought — broiling magma-strength fury of the kind last seen when the Wicked Witch of the West learned someone had just dropped a house on her sister. Skipping work last Wednesday and Thursday (plus taking scheduled personal days Friday and Monday) was her way of telling her ABC bosses she didn’t appreciate the so-called lack of advance notice about Strahan. (In fact, he doesn’t join “GMA” until September. Five months’ notice isn’t enough for her?)
That was it: Ripa had a tantrum and gave herself a time-out at the same moment. Yet by Tuesday Ripa had figured out that what people value in their chat-show hosts is their perceived niceness. Bryant Gumbel and Matt Lauer could tell her something about that. “Today” and Lauer dominated the morning ratings for 16 years until he was widely deemed to have planted a shiv in Ann Curry’s back. His “Q” score dropped from 14 to 9, and “Today” sank to second place.
So Ripa tried to back-date her hissy fit by claiming it was some sort of feminist statement: “It started a much greater conversation,” she said, “about communication and consideration and most importantly, respect in the workplace.”
Ever been disrespected? Ripa’s just like you! Except she makes maybe $19,950,000 more than you. To work five hours a week.
Ripa wasn’t the first person to be blindsided by Strahan, who even when not wearing number 92 proves able to deliver a devastating hit on the unsuspecting. Both he and ABC should have told her what was coming (just as Regis Philbin should have given her more than 20 minutes’ notice when he retired on the air five years ago) instead of waiting until just before the press release went out.
Ripa’s just like you! Except she makes maybe $19,950,000 more than you. To work five hours a week.
But what difference does it make if Ripa was told last Tuesday morning or the previous Friday or three weeks ago? She wasn’t going to like the shakeup no matter what. People tend to put off delivering bad news.
Ripa gets paid to do five shows a week. For $20 million a year. For one-tenth of that, I’d not only do my job as agreed every day but I’d personally Turtle-Wax the CEO’s car every Saturday morning. It seems that the more you get paid, the more entitled, irresponsible and unprofessional you get to be.
“Live” tapes just steps from Broadway, which should have reminded Ripa that The Show Must Go On. Except Ripa isn’t an actress — she only ever plays one role. She’s also not a journalist — her producers run down the guests for her.
In Britain they call the Ripas of the land “presenters.” She’s that, plus now she’s … a diva! Sure, it’s a sexist term that no one would ever apply to a dude. (I just Googled “Terrell Owens” and “diva”: 70,000 hits.)
If the New York Giants showed up for work one day and found out there’d been a sudden change involving their single most important teammate (as they did one day in 2004 to find Coach had replaced a Super Bowl-tested quarterback named Kurt Warner with an untested rookie named Eli Manning), they’d simply carry on. You would. I would.
And so would … Kelly Ripa’s bus driver dad. Ripa let slip, at the end of her scramble to re-establish her sweetie-pie brand on Tuesday, that “My dad, who was a bus driver for 30 years, thinks we’re all crazy.” A bus driver who suddenly stormed out in the middle of the work week wouldn’t “start a conversation” about anything except how quickly he should be fired.