Kelly Ripa Says Friends Teased Her for Never Stealing Anything Until She Made a Surprising Confession

Kelly Ripa has spent decades sharing amusing stories about her marriage, family and everyday life on television, but one recent confession may be among her most unexpected.

During the August 10 episode of Live With Kelly and Mark, Ripa recalled attending a dinner party where a playful conversation revealed something unusual about her compared with everyone else at the table: she apparently had never stolen anything. Instead of receiving praise for her spotless record, Ripa joked that her friends made fun of her eventually inspiring her to commit a very minor act involving three pieces of basil.

A Dinner Party Conversation Gets Everyone Talking

The story emerged while Ripa and her husband and co-host, Mark Consuelos, were discussing ways hosts can encourage interesting conversations at parties.

Consuelos remembered attending a particularly entertaining gathering the previous summer where someone introduced questions designed to get everyone at the table involved.

One of the first questions asked guests to reveal their biggest crush from the 1980s.

According to Consuelos, the question immediately captured everyone’s attention. Guests then began taking turns coming up with new topics.

Eventually, it was Consuelos’ turn.

Mark Consuelos Asked Who Had Ever Stolen Something

Consuelos decided to ask the table a very different question.

“Has anybody here ever stolen anything?” he recalled asking.

The answers apparently ranged from innocent childhood misbehavior to considerably more recent examples.

Ripa remembered some guests admitting that they had stolen small items such as Bazooka bubble gum from convenience stores when they were children.

Others apparently had more recent stories.

Ripa joked that someone admitted, “I stole herbs from the grocery store today.”

What made the conversation particularly funny to her was that these were adults with established lives and careers casually sharing their petty theft stories around the dinner table.

Ripa Was Apparently the Only Exception

When everyone had finished sharing their stories, Consuelos pointed out that his wife was different from the rest of the group.

“You were the only person that had never stolen anything,” he told her.

Ripa said the revelation quickly became another source of entertainment for everyone.

“Everybody made fun of me at the table,” she recalled. “I was shamed for never having stolen anything.”

The teasing was clearly presented as playful rather than serious, but Ripa apparently remembered it when an unusual opportunity presented itself only days later.

Three Pieces of Basil Changed Everything

That weekend, Ripa and Consuelos went boating.

Ripa had prepared tomato and mozzarella sandwiches for the outing, but there was one problem: the basil they had been growing at home had died.

Then she noticed an herb garden at the marina.

Remembering the dinner-party conversation, Ripa decided to break off three small pieces of basil.

She documented the moment with a photograph and sent it to the group chat containing the friends who had teased her.

“There, I stole some basil from the marina herb garden,” she remembered telling them.

It was hardly a dramatic entry into a life of crime, but technically, Ripa felt she could finally contribute a story of her own.

Mark Consuelos Questioned Whether It Was Really Stealing

Consuelos wasn’t entirely convinced that his wife’s basil adventure qualified.

He suggested that herbs growing in the marina’s garden might have been available for people to use anyway.

Ripa wasn’t so sure.

“I don’t know if it’s up for grabs,” she admitted.

For Ripa, the important detail was that she hadn’t personally established whether she had permission before taking it.

That was apparently enough to leave her feeling guilty about the three leaves long after the sandwiches had disappeared.

Ripa Says She Still Feels Guilty

Even while recounting the incident for laughs on television, Ripa admitted that the tiny act continued to bother her.

“I still feel bad about stealing the basil,” she said.

“It wasn’t mine, and now I feel worse,” she added after publicly confessing what happened.

Her reaction prompted laughter from the studio audience, particularly given the extremely small scale of her supposed offense.

The story also highlighted the familiar dynamic between Ripa and Consuelos, who frequently turn stories from their life together into humorous conversations on Live.

Kelly and Mark Continue Sharing Stories From Their Marriage

Ripa and Consuelos have been married since 1996 after meeting while working together on the soap opera All My Children. They share three children: Michael, Lola and Joaquin.

Consuelos officially became his wife’s permanent Live co-host in 2023 following Ryan Seacrest’s departure from the program.

Since then, stories about their marriage, vacations, disagreements and social lives have become a regular part of the show’s conversational format.

This time, however, Ripa managed to reveal something viewers probably weren’t expecting.

After years of apparently never stealing anything, she can now point to one rebellious episode involving a marina, some sandwiches and three pieces of basil.

Judging from her lingering guilt, though, it doesn’t sound like Ripa is planning a repeat offense anytime soon.

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