Kelly Ripa disappeared from her morning show to recover from surgery she had avoided for five years – and now she’s revealed the surprising habit that caused the damage, and forced her silence for 10 days.
Viewers of Live with Kelly and Mark have been missing its longtime host since late July, when her husband and co-host, Mark Consuelos, revealed that Ripa, 55, was recovering from gum graft surgery.
What is gum graft surgery?
According to the Cleveland Clinic, “gum graft surgery is a dental procedure for treating thinning gums or gum recession. Gum grafting covers exposed teeth roots and adds volume to your gum line, improving overall oral health.”
Gum grafting replaces lost tissue around the affected teeth, with recovery typically taking between one and two weeks.
For Ripa, however, getting to the operating chair had already taken considerably longer.
Delayed surgery five years
During a pre-recorded episode of her Let’s Talk Off Camera podcast with guest comedian Michelle Buteau, Ripa admitted that doctors had recommended the procedure years earlier.
“Before you praise me, I was supposed to do it five years ago,” she said on the podcast that aired Aug. 12.
Ripa continued putting it off until, she said, her doctor eventually warned that she no longer had “the luxury of time.”
Silence for 10 days
Once she finally went through with the procedure, there was another problem waiting for one of daytime television’s most recognizable voices.
Ripa wasn’t allowed to talk for 10 days.
“They take the skin off of the roof of your mouth and they put it [over your gums],” she explained of the surgery.
Even before undergoing it, Ripa was able to joke about what awaited her, declaring that “death creeps in through the gums.”
Then came the prospect of remaining silent.
“Do I ever need to be heard again? I don’t think so!” she joked on the pre-recorded podcast.
‘She’s not allowed to talk’
When Ripa was noticeably absent from Live on July 27, Consuelos gave viewers an update on his wife’s recovery.
She was “doing great,” he said, but there was one doctor’s order that might have been particularly difficult for the famously talkative host.
“She’s not allowed to talk,” Consuelos told his guest co-host Kevin Jonas, who immediately saw the problem.
“That’s got to be the hardest thing she’s ever done,” Jonas joked.
Consuelos, meanwhile, said he was trying to make sure his wife followed her doctor’s instructions.
“She’s such a great conversationalist,” he said. “But I’m trying to keep her [compliant]. ‘Follow the rules, follow the directions.’”
By the following day, however, Ripa had apparently found a way to bend the rules without entirely abandoning them.
When Jonas asked how she was doing, Consuelos said his wife was “feeling better” and had even started “saying certain things.”
Jonas questioned whether she was actually supposed to be speaking yet.
“I don’t think so,” Consuelos admitted.
Instead, he said Ripa was managing to talk “without moving her bottom lip.”
‘This one hurts’
If being told not to speak wasn’t enough of an indication that this was no minor dental procedure, Consuelos also revealed just how unusual it was to see his wife bothered by the pain.
According to him, Ripa normally has an exceptionally high tolerance for it.
“She famously doesn’t feel pain,” he explained. “When she goes into the dentist, she doesn’t use the novocaine.”
This procedure was different.
“But this one hurts, so I know it’s bad,” Consuelos said.
Jonas compared Ripa to his wife, Danielle, who he said similarly tends to brush off pain.
“I’ll be like, ‘Are you in pain?’ She’s like, ‘I’m fine!’ Come to find out her foot’s, like, falling off,” he joked.
“Well, they do have kids. They deliver kids,” Consuelos replied. “We’re not built for that.”
As Ripa recovered, several guest hosts stepped in next to Consuelos, including Jonas, Buteau, Mila Kunis and Jenna Dewan, while viewers sent messages wishing her well.
But one major question remained: Why had Ripa needed gum graft surgery in the first place?
The habit that caused the damage
Ripa finally answered that question on the Aug. 12 episode of Let’s Talk Off Camera, revealing that the problem wasn’t poor oral hygiene.
Quite the opposite.
“I’m an over-brusher. I brush my teeth too much. It’s a good-bad habit,” Ripa told Buteau. “But I’ve caused gum recession down here specifically, and so they have got to re-gum my gums.”
Ripa’s extended absence has since run into Live’s annual summer break, with the show airing a combination of prerecorded material and previous celebrity interviews through the remainder of August.
She is expected to make her full return to the live broadcast on Sept. 8.
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