Kelly Ripa Left Shocked After Mark Consuelos Disses Her New Jersey Roots: ‘That’s Brave Talk’

Fighting words! Kelly Ripa could not pick her jaw up off the floor after Mark Consuelos insulted her hometown in South Jersey. The pair’s innocent conversation about accents quickly turned shady during an episode of Live With Kelly and Mark on Monday, January 29.

“Austin Butler had to hire a dialect coach to get rid of his accent,” Mark, 52, said. “Cause you know he played Elvis in the movie Elvis, and then he famously went on the award show and said, ‘Thank you very much,’ and people were like, ‘Woah,’ and so for his next project, he had to hire a dialect coach because it was so in there.”

The All My Children actor went on to say that he watched Austin’s new show, Masters of the Air, and felt like the Elvis accent was still very much present.

“I watched the show that he got rid of the accent for, and I was like, ‘I still hear Elvis,’ or maybe it’s because I know or maybe it’s just the way he speaks,” Mark reflected. “There’s a similarity to it, and maybe that’s it.”

Kelly pointed out that she spent time with pal Anderson Cooper this past weekend. Anderson, 56, coparents kids Wyatt and Sebastian with ex Benjamin Maisani.

“Wyatt is fluent in French,” Kelly told the Live audience. “He’s almost 4 years old, and Benjamin said the funniest thing. He said, ‘When [Wyatt] speaks French, he speaks with an American accent that’s so adorable, and I don’t know where he gets it from because the teachers are all French.’ Benjamin is French, and so they all speak French with a French accent, but he’s got this adorable American accent. But when we were playing hide and seek, I don’t know if you were paying attention to this; he has a French accent when he speaks.”

She imitated Wyatt saying her name, which sounded more like “Gelly.”

“That’s cute,” Mark said with a smile. “It’s kind of like when I go down to South Jersey with you.”

Members of the audience cackled as Mark grinned at his wife. He imitated people from New Jersey saying Kelly’s name, drawing even more laughs from the crowd. Kelly, who grew up in Stratford, New Jersey, wasn’t too pleased with the comments.

“That’s brave talk for you,” the Live Wire author told her husband through gritted teeth. “You know you’re going to have to go back eventually.”