Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos are officially empty nesters after dropping their youngest son off at college, and it’s clear that the parents-of-three have mixed feelings about the newfound space in their home. Opening up on Live! With Kelly and Ryan last Tuesday, the 50-year-old spoke on how it felt to drop her son Joaquin off at school, and what the adjustment to their children growing older has been like.
In conversation with co-host Ryan Seacrest, Ripa revealed, “We took our youngest son to college, we dropped him off. It was hard. It was really hard. We dropped him off at school and we gave him a hug, it was actually brutally painful. And I said, ‘I did not realize that 18 years would go so fast’ and he didn’t say anything, he was just giving me a hug.”
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Ripa continued with the emotional moment, describing, "He turned to walk away and I said, 'Wait, Joaquin, one more!' And he kept walking. And I knew that it was happening to him too, the emotion." Joaquin, the youngest son of Ripa and Consuelos, will be attending the University of Michigan, with his older two siblings already off at school.
The host’s other two children both attend school in New York and are therefore closer to home than her youngest, making for a much more emotional farewell as she dropped off the 18-year-old. Ripa also described a game she used to play with her children that resurfaced during the pandemic, describing how it tied in with her goodbye with Joaquin.
"I would tuck them in bed, give them kisses and cuddles, and then I would say goodnight and I would leave and then I would come back and be like, 'One more, one more,' and they would giggle and laugh," Ripa said. "Then they would squeal and scream and it was always exciting." She then explained that the game stopped as they grew older, but resumed when her children moved back home to spend the duration of the pandemic.
Ripa brought it back one last time after dropping Joaquin off at school, but it was evidently more emotional than the game they used to play. "You can never be ready," Ripa concluded of sending her children off to college and becoming an empty nester.
