Ryan Seacrest Details Friendship With Kelly Ripa After Live! Departure

Ryan Seacrest misses his other half.

Two years after the American Idol host left his cohost chair on Live! with Kelly Ripa—after which her husband Mark Conseulos took over—Ryan reflected on the previous life chapter.

“I love that show,” Ryan exclusively told E! News during American Idol’s Top 14 broadcast April 28. “I had a blast doing it. Kelly and I are still the closest friends, Mark too.”

Of course, Ryan isn’t against revisiting his past.

“Mark and Kelly have invited me to come on in a couple weeks,” the 50-year-old gushed. “So, I will be there. The trifecta, we’ll be on the set. I can’t wait to see them.” (For more from Ryan and the rest of the American Idol cast, tune into E! News tonight, April 29, at 11 p.m.)

Shortly after he left his role on Live!—which he held for six years—the Wheel of Fortune host admitted that leaving Kelly was the hardest part of his departure.

“I’ll miss being next to Kelly every single day,” Ryan told E! News in 2023. “We’re extremely close, we’re very good friends, we’ll remain good friends. But there’s that hour of communicating with somebody. You become super excited about doing it. You laugh, and then, of course, you can’t remember what you said to each other. So, I’ll miss that part.”

And while Kelly—who has been married to Mark for 28 years—found a perfect replacement for her former cohost in her husband, she previously emphasized how much she loved working with Ryan.

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“I’m so grateful to have spent the last six years beside my dear friend of too many decades to count and will miss starting my days with Ryan,” Kelly effused in a statement to E! News in 2023. “Ryan’s energy, passion and love for entertainment is one-of-a-kind.”

As for Mark, he was more than honored to take the Live! baton from his pal.

“We have such a great relationship,” Mark said of Ryan shortly after his role was announced. “We’re truly like brothers.”