Queen of the clapback. As a high-profile celebrity, Kelly Ripa has been subjected to her fair share of criticism over the years. However, the Live With Kelly and Ryan cohost revealed her solution for dealing with internet trolls.
“I always say this, I counter-troll with love. I never really take it [seriously],” Ripa, 48, said during the TrevorLIVE New York Gala at Cipriani Wall Street on Monday, June 17. “I sometimes wish people could hear my voice as I’m saying it out loud. You don’t really have the proper context.”
Ripa continued: “I think I have the most clever trolls. I do. I think my trolls are amazingly clever and I will feed them. They deserve to be fed. We inspire each other. You can literally tell when I am sitting in the dentist office, if the subway is broken down, if there is a signal that has gone out, just by how many people I have clapped back towards, because if I am busy I don’t really read the comments.”
Ripa, who is no stranger to combatting haters, previously slammed an Instagram commenter in September 2018 who remarked that she looked “to [sic] old” to be with her 48-year-old husband, Riverdale star Mark Consuelos. To this, she fired back with a witty response of her own.
“You need to learn how to spell the word too sweetie,” she wrote. “As in you’re too stupid to be with my young, handsome husband. Ps, he likes proper grammar as well you dope.”
During a March 2018 appearance on The Wendy Williams Show, Ripa told guest host Jerry O’Connell that she enjoys responding to with trolls with a “clapback.”
“I love a troll, but I love to troll a troll. Like, if you’re gonna troll me, then I’m gonna troll back,” she previously explained. “And that, we can all agree, that is the way God intended.”
Ripa married Consuelos in 1996 after the couple met while working together on All My Children. They are parents to sons Michael, 22, Joaquin, 16, and daughter Lola, 18.
While Ripa and Consuelos’ have shown their children the best ways to stand up for themselves in the digital age, the duo have also taught their kids other valuable life lessons, including the importance of keeping commitments. “I think what they have learned so far in their young lives is that you show up for people when they show up for you and you show up,” Ripa noted at the event Monday.
