Passions run high when it comes to cookies on the set of Live! with Mark and Kelly – so high in fact host Mark Conseulos threatened to storm off the set while filming with Kelly Ripa on Wednesday, January 8.
The All My Children alum, 53, and his fellow former soap opera actress-wife, 54, discussed what they were most looking forward to during the upcoming annual Girl Scout Cookie fundraiser. The organization responsible for the American pastime, Girls Scouts of the USA, announced they would be discontinuing two of their distinct cookie types. As Kelly prepared to drop the news on which treats got the axe, her distraught husband exclaimed, “No, no! Do not — if it’s the Samoa, I’m going to walk off set right now.”
Luckily for Mark, he can keep his gig. As it turns out, it’s Girl Scout S’mores and Toast-Yays, two of the lesser-known varieties, that are ending their production run in 2025. While most Girl Scout troops begin their sales between January and February every year, anyone can order any cookie via the organization’s website year-round.
After discovering this fact, Kelly sweetly told her panicking beau she’d be more than happy to order him some of his darling Samoas. Though, as she would quickly discover, Mark isn’t the only one who holds their favorite cookie near and dear to their heart.
“I’ll get you some Samoas. I’ll get some Peanut Butter Tagalongs and I’ll get, um, I’m going to get the …” Kelly began telling Mark, before he interjected: “Thin Mints?”
And just like that, after almost 25 years of hosting Live, Kelly’s audience turned on her without a second thought as she declared, “I don’t really like Thin Mints.” Boos echoed from the live studio audience and nearly drowned out the hosts. “I don’t like them, there I said it!” Kelly told the jeering crowd, doubling down on her clearly unpopular opinion as Mark goaded them to boo harder.
Laughing, Kelly told the audience to “shut up” as she ran with the joke.
The couple have built a magnetic rapport as cohosts since Mark joined in 2023, as evidenced by their success in the talk-show space. They even won Outstanding Talk Show Host at the Daytime Emmy Awards last year and had been the most-watched syndicated talk show for 81 weeks straight.
Mark and Kelly married in 1996 after meeting on the set of All My Children – Mark was actually cast as Kelly’s love interest in the show – but the daytime hostess knew he was the one after seeing a casting picture of her future hubby during production.
“When I saw him, the photograph of him, I saw my entire future with him flash before [my eyes]. Like, I saw it. I [didn’t] believe in any of that and now I do because of that moment,” she said.
“I’m crazy about her,” the Riverdale star told Us Weekly in January 2019. “She’s an extremely patient and a tolerant woman, and I think that’s the true secret to our marriage.”
