Kelly Ripa recently opened up about her early career days, admitting she was terrified of being fired from All My Children, the soap opera that made her a star.
The now-54-year-old talk show host got her big break playing Hayley Vaughan in the early ’90s and stayed with the show until 2002. While most actors used soaps as a stepping stone, Ripa found comfort in the stability the show offered, though that didn’t stop her from worrying she’d be written off any minute.
Speaking candidly on Live with Kelly and Mark, she said, “A steady gig has always appealed to me. I liked the weekly guarantee of the soap. Most people, they get on a soap and their goal is to get right off a soap, and I just settled right in there.” Ripa explained that the structure helped her plan her life, something that’s not easy to come by in the entertainment world.
But even with a regular paycheck, there was always the looming threat of contract cycles. “Every 13 weeks you can be fired,” she said. “It was terrifying.” That unpredictability meant actors could be written out without much notice, keeping even veteran cast members on edge.
After a decade on the show, Kelly eventually moved on, especially as her hosting gig on Live! took off. But she says All My Children taught her a valuable lesson: don’t get too attached. She remembered how emotional the cast and crew were when the studio shut down, but she had a more detached reaction. “It’s from years of acting,” she explained. “No matter where I was, my home was always temporary.”
She added, “I always knew it was temporary. I didn’t know how temporary it would be. But I knew it was a temporary space, so I never allowed myself to attach.”
All My Children ran from 1970 to 2011, with a short-lived online reboot in 2013. It helped launch multiple careers, most notably Susan Lucci’s as Erica Kane. For Ripa, landing the role of Hayley Vaughan wasn’t part of a grand plan, it was a lucky break.
She told Entertainment Weekly during a reunion special, “It really was a happy accident. It changed my life. It changed my entire life, not just my acting life, but the whole trajectory of my life.”
Did you watch Kelly Ripa on All My Children back in the day?
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