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Wheel of Fortune host Ryan Seacrest returned to his old haunt on Monday (October 7), stopping by Live with Kelly and Mark for an interview.
But the sweet reunion was not without some salty moments from his former co-host Kelly Ripa.
The Live alum and his sister, Meredith Seacrest Leach, joined Ripa and Mark Consuelos to discuss their new children’s book “The Make-Believers.” It didn’t take long for Ripa to spin the conversation to Seacrest’s new gig, which it’s long been whispered he left the talk show for.
“So, tell me about Wheel of Fortune now. Have you learned how to spell?” Ripa quipped.
“We know that’s a problem,” Seacrest’s sister interjected (the diss was a call-back to a confession he made about being bad at spelling on Live a few months ago).
Seacrest joked he still “do[es]n’t text well. She [Ripa] knows that. But on the puzzles I’m okay. I kind of know where we’re going with the puzzles,” he added.
Ripa teased: “Cause you have the answer in front of you, don’t you?”
Seacrest brushed the comment off: “Either in my head or in front of me. I mean, it’s somewhere.”
He went on to share that his “favorite part” of hosting the iconic game show was how much it means in living rooms across America. “The show means so much to so many people,” he said. “They grew up with it. Their grandma watched it, their parents loved it, they watched it together as a family, and it really has that specialness to it. So meeting everybody, giving away the cash and prizes, even more fun than I thought.”
After Ripa asked if contestants are “so excited” to see Seacrest in person, he kindly joked that they’re more excited to see the one and only Vanna White.
“Well, not really me. They’re really excited to see Vanna,” he said. “They’re like, ‘Hi, Vanna! Ryan, we see you everywhere.’”
Seacrest also humorously shared that his mom thinks, like Live, the game show is also live, texting him nightly: “Great suit, what pattern is that,” he recalled. Ripa asked if Seacrest was “like Vanna” in that he never repeats a suit; he shared that was definitely not the case: “I have five solids and I just change the shirt.”
Meanwhile, WoF viewers are cozying up to Seacrest, who officially replaced Pat Sajak as the nightly host after four decades last month. He’s kept ratings high; raking in the strongest week in five years for the Season 42 debut.
That said, the transition hasn’t been letter perfect according to astute fans, who called out the host for an on-air blunder they dubbed his “first blooper” on Friday, as well as a recent questionable bonus puzzle.
Seacrest was officially replaced by Ripa’s husband on Live on April 17, 2023. He had co-hosted the show with Ripa since 2017. So the timing spelled more than coincidence when he was announced as Sajak’s successor in June 2023 (following Sajak’s retirement news), or two months later.
