Kelly Ripa addresses backlash for her 'extreme poverty' comment
Kelly Ripa is clarifying comments she made about her son's living conditions.
The "Live With Kelly and Ryan" co-host told Jimmy Kimmel recently that her eldest son, Michael, is living in "extreme poverty" in Brooklyn, which garnered a swift backlash.
Ripa explained on social media that Michael is "in his first non-parent subsidized [apartment] with roommates," and that she's getting heat "because people love to have fake outrage over something they didn't see."
"I didn't grow up privileged and neither did @instasuelos," she added, mentioning her husband, actor Mark Consuelos. "We work and we expect our kids to as well. And the fact that a pack of fools want to b---- about that, i say let em."
Ripa and Consuelos have three children: Michael, 22, Lola, 18, and Joaquin, 16. Michael, whom Ripa said works full time and attends New York University, is financially independent and dealing with the hardships that entails, Ripa told Kimmel.
"He loves the freedom. He hates paying his own rent and he is chronically poor," she said, adding that he's relying on a $20 Halloween gift from his grandparents to pay for electricity. "He's experiencing being an adult."
Earlier this year, Lola began her freshman year at NYU, although Ripa admitted to Kimmel that she wasn't initially supportive of that choice.
"I didn't think the kids should live in the city where they grew up. I felt like they needed an experience -- go to California, go to Texas, go somewhere in the Midwest," she explained. "They were, both of them, adamant for different reasons why they wanted to go to NYU. So, I said, 'Well, you're gonna be like the other kids: Come home when it's regular visiting hours like Thanksgiving, Christmas. That's it! Your dad and I need to rediscover each other.'"
