Who Is Kelly Ripa's Husband? 11 Facts About Mark Consuelos

Kelly Ripa has been morning chat show royalty since the early 2000s, and in that time, she has cycled through a number of co-hosts. The latest, and hunkiest, of these is her real-life husband, Mark Consuelos, who had been guest hosting for years before permanently scooping up the gig. "As a fan-favorite guest host for years, Mark is no stranger to the Live family," executive producer Michael Gelman said in a statement (via People). "Having him join the show is so special for us and we're sure that viewers will feel the same." The show was renamed "Live with Kelly and Mark" upon Consuelos' full-time hire in 2023, and audiences have enjoyed the couple's playful teasing and constant flirting ever since.

Consuelos rose to fame playing Mateo Santos on "All My Children," and has subsequently acted in many other projects — most of them on television. He has been a series regular on "Alpha House," "Pitch," and "Riverdale," and had memorable guest or recurring parts on "American Horror Story: Asylum," "Ugly Betty," "Broad City," "Friends," multiple iterations of "Law & Order" and many others. But even though he has been a TV staple, there is plenty the average fan may not know about "People's Sexiest TV Host" for 2025. For instance, few people realize that "Live" is not the actor's first hosting job and that, in 2007, he hosted two oft-forgotten dating shows, "Age of Love" and "Science of Love." Keep reading for 11 other interesting facts about Mark Consuelos.

Mark Consuelos' father is from Mexico and his mother from Italy, but the actor was born in neither of those countries. He actually came into this world in the Spanish city Zaragoza. From there, the family moved to his mother's home country, where Consuelos spent his earliest years. In 2019, when Ryan Seacrest was still co-host of "Live," Kelly Ripa detailed a family trip to her hubby's childhood home in Italy. "Let me just say that we went home to the house where my husband grew up as a small child," she said on the morning chat show. "This was not his birthplace house. This is where they moved when he was, like, a small kid." She proceeded to pull out photos of a young Consuelos and his family in front of the house, as well as photos of herself, Consuelos, and two of their kids standing in a similar spot decades later. "He was very emotional," Ripa said of her husband's reaction to seeing the home.

When he was 5, Consuelos and his two older siblings moved to Lebanon, Illinois. It was there that the star learned to speak English by watching television shows, which hilariously included his future home front "All My Children." The family moved again — this time to Tampa, Florida — when Consuelos was 16. He attended Bloomingdale High School in Valrico, Florida, for the remainder of his secondary schooling and graduated in 1989.

Though he has had ample success in acting, Mark Consuelos did not grow up dreaming of being a thespian. "It was all kind of by happenstance," he once told ConnectComm Magazine of his path to Hollywood. The star began his college years at the University of Notre Dame, but found he was not a fan of the colder winters in Indiana. This prompted him to make a move back to the Tampa area, where he attended the University of South Florida and studied business. No one in his family is in the arts, and the expectation was for Consuelos to study something with guaranteed earning potential. And, indeed, he graduated with a degree in marketing but not before accidentally sparking up a love of acting.

It was when a friend enrolled in an acting class off campus that Consuelos first considered acting as an elective. He decided to tag along to the class, but with no expectations of it leading anywhere beyond that one course. "I thought it was hilarious that he was taking it," Consuelos said in that same interview. "It was outside of the university, like a local theater group, and he said you should just come with me and see if you like it. So, I went and fell in love." Consuelos graduated college in 1994, and despite not having a drama degree, it did not take long for him to break into show business. By 1995, he was a series regular on "All My Children."

Mark Consuelos had a rather charmed up-and-coming in Hollywood, which is sure to annoy every theatre kid who toiled away for decades while playing bit parts on screen and acting in small plays in front of an audience of five. Though the period between college and "All My Children" was brief, it was certainly notable given how Consuelos opted to bring in the bacon. The handsome star capitalized on his good looks and worked as a stripper in the Tampa area during this time. "A lot of hot guys in Hollywood have done that," Consuelos' wife Kelly Ripe said to Vanity Fair in 2012. "He was straight out of college, and he went to Notre Dame and finished his degree at the University of South Florida. So, there he was in South Florida, he's gorgeous, looking to break into show business, so he started off as a roadie to a group of these guys, and then they talked him into stripping."

Consuelos has never shied away from his exotic dancer past, although he hasn't exactly coughed up the details. Still, little nuggets have come out over the years — including a photo of the star with his coworkers and a few women, unearthed by the Daily Mail in 2021. It has also been revealed that Consuelos used the alias "Meat" as his stage name, worked at a bar called Stingers, and that he knows (or knew) the actual men on whom the film "Magic Mike" is based.

While Mark Consuelos and Kelly Ripa insist there isn't a secret to their marriage, it probably doesn't hurt that they still seem so enamored with each other, even decades after first meeting. The couple first crossed paths when Consuelos was screen testing for his breakout role on "All My Children." Since his character's love interest was going to be Kelly Ripa's character Hayley Vaughan, the powers-that-be brought Ripa in to read with her potential new scene partner. "My main focus was getting the job and I couldn't believe my luck, having been in New York for five minutes," Consuelos told E! News in 2006. "My first impression of my wife was—she was obviously extremely beautiful—but she was really funny, really intelligent, really quick. I realized that if I was ever to get into an argument with her, I would lose every single time."

For Ripa, the attraction was also immediate. In fact, she claims to have fallen for Consuelos before they even met in person, simply based on his headshot. "I saw my entire future with him flash before — like I saw it," Ripa recalled on the radio show "Lunch with Bruce" (via People). "And I don't believe in any of that and now I do because of that moment."

Though Mark Consuelos and Kelly Ripa made their red-carpet debut as a couple in February 1996, they had already been dating for months by then. Consuelos and Ripa then broke up in April 1996, only one week before they ended up marrying. "If you would've asked me a week before I got married and said, 'When do you think you're going to get married?,' I would be like 'I don't know, maybe never, or 10 years or 15 years from now. And I was 25 years old," Consuelos said on the podcast "The Skinny Confidential" in September 2025. "I broke up with her because I was dumb, and it was the most agonizing week of my life and I just knew I never wanted to feel like that."

After having learned he did not want to live without her, Consuelos got to work trying to win Ripa back. The fact that they worked together helped Consuelos get some much-needed face time. After a press event, Consuelos followed Ripa on her walk home and somehow convinced her to come to his place, where Consuelos proposed over a casual dinner of pizza and wine. A day later, the couple was en route to Las Vegas to elope. They walked down the aisle on May 1, 1996, followed by a quick Italian honeymoon. Consuelos and Ripa kept the marriage secret until that August, making the reveal in a Soap Opera Digest interview.

As you might've noticed, Mark Consuelos and Kelly Ripa aren't exactly the type to pump the brakes when it comes to their careers or personal lives. Case in point: they learned Ripa was pregnant with their first child not long after marrying. Their first son, Michael Consuelos, was born in June 1997, only 13 months after Mark and Ripa eloped. Four years later, they welcomed daughter Lola Consuelos — one day before Father's Day in 2001. Youngest child Joaquin Consuelos followed in February 2003.

"I did it early. I didn't plan it that way. It just happened. And we got really lucky that's what we did when we did it," Mark said of becoming a young father, on an episode of his wife's podcast, "Let's Talk Off Camera with Kelly Ripa" (via People). He admitted that, while he thought it was too early for kids at the time, he now appreciates having done things early and has no desire for more kids.

Though he wears many hats, the way he discusses his family has made it clear Mark considers being a dad his most important job. One of his proudest moments was working alongside his oldest son, who guested on "Riverdale" as the younger version of his character Hiram Lodge. "It was emotional for me, to see him practicing his lines and coming to set. He was so earnest about it. It really was a bucket-list moment for me," Mark told Esquire in 2019.

In 2007, Mark Consuelos and Kelly Ripa decided to officially go into business together when they started a production company focused on championing premium quality documentaries and other powerful stories. The company is adorably named after their three kids, using the first two letters of each of their names (Michael, Lola, and Joaquin) to create the word "Milojo," which has no other meaning. Milojo has developed and produced content for many outlets, including Bravo, Disney+, VH1, HGTV, TLC, and others. They are best known for their documentaries, which includes the acclaimed "The Streak," a 2008 sports film about a wrestling team at a Tampa-area suburban high school. Both Consuelos and Ripa are credited as executive producers on the ESPN documentary, which was nominated for "Outstanding Sports Documentary" at the Emmys.

Consuelos has dozens of other producing credits under his belt, and not all are documentaries. He has produced everything from podcast series to TV movies — such as the Lifetime films "Let's Get Physical," about a fitness instructor with a secret life as a sex worker, and "The Disappearance of Cari Farver," about a man who starts getting text messages from his disappeared ex-girlfriend. Other credits include the Ripa-hosted quiz show "Generation Gap," the LGBT-themed TV film "Fire Island," and the reality series "Big RV Remix," featuring Outkast's Big Boi and his business partner turning regular RVs into luxury rides.

Mark Consuelos found himself with a whole new audience when he was cast as evil businessman Hiram Lodge on the CW hit show "Riverdale." He remained on the program from its debut in 2017 all the way through Season 5. In Season 6, the character was killed by an assassin after his daughter, Veronica Lodge, placed a bounty on his head. Although the death occurred offscreen, Consuelos returned to the show on two more occasions — once in a voiceover (in Season 6) and once for an alternate timeline episode (in Season 7).

Consuelos was more than happy to switch things up after years of playing nice guys more in line with Archie Andrews than villains like Hiram Lodge. In fact, Consuelos felt like his career was building toward a juicy villain role before he was cast as the sinister criminal. "Hiram is so far away from who I'd ever be," he said to Esquire in 2019. "I don't think I've ever played anybody this evil, and it's so fun. I've played a good guy for so many years. But with the last four or five roles, the good guy wasn't so one dimensional. Each character was getting a little douchey or flawed, so I think that's really what prepared me for this role. Of course, nothing really prepares you for something quite like Riverdale." Consuelos proved to be a fantastic baddie, even earning a Teen Choice Award in 2018 for "Choice TV: Villain."

Mark Consuelos remains deeply in touch with his Italian roots and one of the ways that has manifested is in his love of soccer, or calcio as it is called in Italy. He credits his mother, specifically, for instilling a love of the sport and in one interview, recounted her emotional reaction when Italy won the 1982 World Cup. Consuelos loves soccer so much that, in 2022, he and wife Kelly Ripa joined an ownership group that purchased an Italian team, Campobasso FC. The historic soccer club, founded in 1919, had fallen upon tough times after the previous ownership went bankrupt. They were subsequently kicked out of the third division by the Italian Football Federation, although they have since worked their way back up.

"I grew up in Italy. I spent the first about five years of my life there, and we go back every summer. I grew up with Italian football. I had those guys, their posters, on my wall. And so just through a community here in New York City, someone approached me and said, would you like to be part of this? And I said, Okay," Consuelos told The Hollywood Reporter about the purchase. "The opportunity to invest in a community to help rebuild something that they were about to lose. I think it has so much potential, and it was too special to pass up." In 2025, Consuelos and Ripa released a four-part documentary about their experience with the team, called "Running with the Wolves."

Mark Consuelos is, and there's really no debating it, a total hunk of a man. So much so, even Esquire noted his thirst traps when they interviewed him in 2019, where it was also revealed that the actor's friends jokingly refer to him as "daddy" (much like half the internet does). Consuelos has never been shy about taking his shirt off in public — the stripper background probably helps, in addition to his many love scenes on "All My Children" — but some of the hottest shots of the star have come courtesy of his wife. For instance, after Netflix acquired Consuelos' series "Kingdom" in 2020, Kelly Ripa posted a shirtless photo of her hubby and two of his similarly ripped co-stars to Instagram in celebration of the show's release on the streamer.

Consuelos has been shirtless in plenty of other instances, including on "Live with Kelly and Mark" and on "Riverdale," where he memorably boxed actor K.J. Apa, who played Archie Andrews. Despite Apa being decades his junior, it was Consuelos whose biceps and abs stole the show. It really is no surprise that, a year after he was tapped to be the first-ever male global ambassador for Stuart Weitzman, the brand opted to highlight Consuelos' sex appeal in a Spring 2025 advertising campaign. Well, it was a bit surprising, given that they stripped him down to his underwear to sell shoes — and in a few pics, not even that. Not that we are complaining.

If, for some odd reason, you have not yet been sold on America's sweethearts Mark Consuelos and Kelly Ripa, then this should be the tipping point. The couple is famously charitable and has devoted both their time and money to many worthy causes, including offering unwavering support to the LGBTQ+ community. In 2019, Consuelos and Ripa were presented with the Champions Award at the Trevor Project's now-defunct annual gala for their allyship and continued support of both that organization and others, such as the Los Angeles LGBT Center. The award was presented by Consuelos' "Kingdom" co-star Jonathan Tucker.

Consuelos and Ripa have also been longtime supporters of Women In Need (WIN), a family-focused housing inequality organization that runs 16 shelters and more than 450 supportive housing units across New York City. "The WIN Foundation was something that I was exposed to ... when I was on 'All My Children' and someone in the cast was involved," Consuelos told ConnectComm Magazine. "We got to do work with them, especially over the holidays...it was a cause that Kelly and I found close to our hearts." At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the couple even donated half a million dollars to WIN so that homeless children could have access to the necessary technology to engage in virtual learning while schools were running remotely. Some of the funds also went towards college scholarships for students in need and other WIN initiatives.