Kelly Ripa was paid LESS than husband Mark Consuelos when they co-starred on All My Children

Kelly Ripa has been tackling the pay gap.

Appears on the cover of VarietyIn the Power Of Women issue, she pointed out how she has been mistreated in the workplace in the past.

The talk show host shared that when she starred on All My Children in the 1990s, she was paid less than her co-star and now-husband Mark Consuelos. That, despite the fact that she had started working on soap before him.

“It started years after I started,” he said of their time together on the show.

Also in her interview, she shared that she was given a janitor’s closet as an office when she started at Live With Regis & Kelly.

“It wasn’t until I got what we call my ‘fancy job’ that I started making more money than him,” he said.

“We have been together for so long that it has always been collective money. We are very old-fashioned in that sense.

And she also revealed that she was treated badly on Live With Regis & Kelly when it started.

When the 52-year-old started at Live With Regis & Kelly in 2001 after Kathy Lee Gifford left, she didn’t get any kind of VIP treatment.

Instead, the actress, who opened up about her marriage earlier this week, had to use the janitor’s closet to do her paperwork and was forced to use a public bathroom with the 250 audience members, which was awkward. especially when there was a line. .

“I had a really tough time,” Ripa told the publication.

Ripa revealed that she had to try really hard to have some privacy in the workplace.

In 2001, when she was hired for Live, the former actress was told she couldn’t have an office of her own.

But there were empty office spaces in the building that she could easily have slipped into to make her calls, drop off her bag, and store her paperwork.

Ripa was told no.

He added that he was informed that the empty office spaces were reserved for executives visiting from Los Angeles.

Then four years later, in 2005, they gave him a janitor’s closet which they cleaned out and moved a desk.

It was clearly a way to keep his ego in check.

She thought she might finally have her own office when her co-star Regis, who died in 2020, retired from the show in 2011.

But that didn’t happen.

Instead of inheriting Philbin’s spacious office, it was left empty.

“They said, ‘Oh no, we’re saving that.’ And I said, “Keep it for what?” she commented.

And they say, “Well, by the time the new one comes.” And I looked at them and I said, “I’m the new guy,” he said.

Kelly did not get the go-ahead to take over. So instead she pushed her way towards him.

‘All those offices that weren’t available to me suddenly became available [to others]with walls knocked down to make them twice as big,’ he added.

“It was fascinating for me to watch: the need to make the new guy feel comfortable and respected, but he couldn’t use those offices,” he said.

I had to use the broom closet.

And when he had to use the bathroom, he had to go out into the main one where he addressed audience members.

‘We have a studio audience, like 250 people! — And I have to queue,’ she explained.

“Particularly when I was pregnant, it was extraordinarily tiring to have to wait in line.

“I have to host the show and I’m still waiting in line to use the bathroom,” he said. It just seemed like, you know, a very unnecessarily difficult situation.

So who does she blame? The network, because they did not keep it the same.

Ryan Seacrest is now leaving the show and Consuelos will step in.