As the co-host of “Live with Kelly and Mark,” alongside her husband, Mark Consuelos, Kelly Ripa always seems to strike the right balance between glam star who can work the red carpet in head-turning outfits and self-deprecating goofball that’s happy to call out her most awkward moments and get real about her fails. (Cue the time when she answered a FaceTime from Andy Cohen while she was naked in the gym locker room.)
But some of her most classic fails are her beauty bombs. Because thankfully for the rest of us, Ripa’s willingness to get down and dirty in the name of research and candidly sharing her experiences benefits us all. By these five fails alone, we might reconsider fake lash placement or checking the due date on our self-tanners.
And believe it or not, we might have Regis Philbin to thank for this. In her book, “Live Wire,” published in September 2022, Ripa credited her former co-host for teaching her the importance of good storytelling. She wrote, “It’s taking the audience on a ride with you and remembering that you are always the butt of the joke.” And with these five beauty fails, she would make Philbin proud.
The time her spray tan turned her green
Kelly Ripa fessed up to a spray tan fail during a June 2023 taping of “Live,” as reported by Page Six. She told the audience she was feeling a bit pale in her light pink dress but had a quick and easy solution. “I’ve got this spray-on self-tanner, no muss, no fuss. You just spray it right on and rub it in.” Straightforward, right? Not so much. Ripa’s palms were left green.
This is somewhat common with self-tanners and is often caused by the product being old or the DHA — dihydroxyacetone is the ingredient that reacts with amino acids in the skin to turn it more brown — in the product reacting with ingredients in another product on her hands, such as lotion. The result? Ripa was left with ogre-tinged palms. Audience members offered the host ideas on how to fix the faux-tan fail.
This is why professional spray tanners and product labels tell customers to make sure there are no products on their skin when they fake tan. Because even wearing deodorant can leave you with slime-green armpits post-tan. Just ask Ripa if you need confirmation.
The time her false lashes nearly blinded her
Kelly Ripa is no stranger to faux lashes. In fact, it’s rare to see her without them. According to E! News, even when she lost a bet in 2016 to then-“Live” co-host Michael Strahan and agreed to go makeup-free for a taping, Reddit users were quick to point out that it looked like she still had lashes on.
But until August 2024, Ripa had never worn fake lashes on both her upper and lower lash lines — only on top. And it didn’t go well. She revealed to reporter George Pennachio after the D23 fan event, where she was inducted as a Disney Legend, that she had a faux lash fail when the glue from both upper and lower lashes made it so she could barely open her eyes, per ABC7. “I was trying to see people I knew, [but] my eyelids were glued together.” She went backstage and took the lower strip off to fix the problem.
The time she had bad Botox
When Megyn Kelly had a brief co-hosting stint on “Live” in November 2016, Kelly Ripa admitted to her that she’d had a bad Botox experience about a year prior, as reported by People. “It did something to my good side, so then I had two bad sides,” she shared. She explained that after about half a year, the neurotoxin’s effects wore off and she looked like herself again. “But there was about a six-month period where people were like, ‘What’s wrong with Kelly?'” she shared with her co-host and audience.
Ripa has made no secret of her love for the injectable, which she first used in her armpits to control sweating, as she explained in “Live Wire.” And according to Entertainment Tonight, in 2014, when Ripa was a guest on “Watch What Happens Live,” she told host Andy Cohen that Botox was her favorite beauty product. “It changed my life.”
The time she showed how to draw way outside the (lip)lines
The debate over how to use lip liner is nothing new. Some swear it should only be used to trace the exact line of the lip, whereas some people always draw outside the line to create a fuller appearance. And Kelly Ripa falls into the latter category. We know this because she posted a video tutorial to her Instagram after being mistakenly called out for using lip fillers. While she has no issues with injecting Botox into her face, Ripa didn’t like being accused of injecting pout plumpers.
She captioned the video: “No, I didn’t get lip fillers. This is the lip trick you monsters.” The video explained how she uses a brown lip liner to trace outside the lip line. Then she uses her go-to M.A.C Spice liner to line outside that line before she fills all of that in and tops with products from Lisa Rinna’s line (naturally).
So Ripa is team “line outside” then? Not exactly. As she admitted in the video, “Would I do this if I wasn’t on TV? No.”
The time she admitted to sleeping with wet hair
During a June 2024 taping of “Live with Kelly and Mark,” Kelly Ripa brought up the subject of going to bed with wet hair. She referred to dermatologist warnings that hitting the pillow with damp tresses can cause breakage and even lead to fungal infections of the scalp. After listing the negatives associated with the practice, Consuelos asked his wife if she ever did it and she admitted, “Occasionally I do.”
Jonathan van Ness, the hair pro from “Queer Eye,” who happened to be a guest on the episode, confirmed that he agreed sleeping on wet strands was a no-no for hair and scalp health.
Thankfully for Ripa and others who go to bed post-hair wash, if you do sleep on wet hair, there are a few ways to improve outcomes: Sleep on a satin or silk pillowcase to minimize damage to tresses and use a hair oil. Ripa, who follows both protocols, high-fived her husband when she read this information.
