According to a recent report, Michael Strahan has not spoken to Kelly Ripa since a meeting with ABC executives on Tuesday in which the latter learned the former was leaving for Good Morning America.
According to another recent report, however, this should come as no surprise.
Because Ripa and Strahan never got along.
“It was all for the show,’’ an insider close to Ripa tells The New York Post of Kelly and Michael’s supposedly cordial relationship.
“They could not stand each other, and whenever they communicated off-camera, it was always through their reps.”
Ripa has reportedly remained angry all week; less over Strahan receiving a raise to co-anchor GMA full-time (starting in September) than over the delay in her finding out about this network decision.
Kelly believes she deserves to have been told about this major change to Live! in advance of the public finding out about it.
In response, Ripa did not show up for Wednesday’s episode of the program and no one is certain when she’ll return.
Strahan – a former New York Giants defensive star – was already working two days a week at GMA, on top of co-hosting Live! each morning… and the stress was allegedly taking its toll.
“He was having temper tantrums,” Page Six writes.
“He’d lose it, yelling at [Ripa] and [executive producer Michael] Gelman. He acted like he was in a locker room, not a dressing room.”
A source close to Strahan, however, insists that Michael was advised by network higher-ups to remain mum on his new GMA role.
This same source refutes the notion that Kelly and Michael only spokes through middle men, but does acknowledge that plenty of “tension” existed between the colleagues.
Ripa, meanwhile, was replaced this morning by Erin Andrews.
The reporter tried to joke with Strahan, asking if anything of note had been going on with him, to which Michael laughed and replied “Too soon! Too soon!”
To many, though, Ripa cannot return to Live! soon enough.
But will she return to a chair across from Strahan?
“I don’t believe that co-hosting together is a viable option anymore,” a source tells People Magazine.
“Anything is possible, but that doesn’t seem like a viable option. Practically, it’s a different dynamic now.”