Kelly Ripa Reveals She Stopped Drinking Since Ryan Seacrest Became Co-Host

Published on January 21, 2020.

Kelly Ripa revealed that she quit drinking alcohol.

On Monday’s episode of Live with Kelly and Ryan, the 49-year-old talk show host opened up about quitting drinking while talking about the decline in wine sales in 2019. She joked with her co-host Ryan Seacrest, that since cutting out wine, her consumption must’ve caused the sudden downturn.

“They’re saying that Americans bought less wine last year. It’s the first drop in a quarter of a century,” Ripa said. “Now, I believe this is because I quit drinking, that I caused this dip. I have influenced the market.”

She continued: “I’m not saying I’ve driven people [out of drinking alcohol], I’m saying I stopped buying wine and there’s a … dip.”

Although the talk show host didn’t say why she quit drinking, she did hint that the choice came around the time Seacrest became her co-host back in 2017, after Michale Strahan left the show.

“I started the show and she quit drinking. What does that tell you?” Seacrest joked.

She responded with: “Exactly. … It’s amazing.”

Even though she didn’t specify why she chose sobriety, Ripa has previously spoken about the regimented diet she follows which helps her stay in top shape.

“It has changed my life, it’s changed the whole way I think about food,” Ripa said in 2015 about her high-alkaline diet, which focuses on vegetables like beets, broccoli, cucumbers, kale, kiwis and bell peppers and avoiding acidic foods like yogurt, fish and sugar.

Even though it may seem like the talk show host deprives herself of the things she likes, she doesn’t – she instead finds ways to adjust the diet to fit her lifestyle.

“I like to drink coffee. I occasionally will have fish. The alkaline diet is primarily a vegan diet, but I like cream in my coffee. I like to have a glass of wine,” Ripa revealed PEOPLE in 2015. “So I don’t adhere to it strictly, but when I do a cleanse, it will be seven days, and then I go back to my normal life. But my normal life, like I said, is not that different than the alkaline cleanse.”