Kelly Ripa Flees To Turks & Caicos After Michael Strahan Quits ‘Live’

And she’s off! Kelly Ripa is jetting out of the Big Apple with her husband, Mark Consuelos, after Michael Strahan announced he’d be leaving her talk show ‘Live! With Kelly & Michael’ on April 19. But how long is she staying away from the show for?!

Michael Strahan is holding things down on the Live! set after revealing that he was quitting the talk show to head to Good Morning America full-time. So, where’s Kelly Ripa? The 45-year-old was completely blindsided by her co-host’s decision, and decided to get away from it all instead of joining him at the desk this week.

Fans were SHOCKED when Kelly didn’t show up to set on April 20, and as we previously reported, she won’t be there the rest of this week, either, with Erin Andrews and Shay Mitchell taking over her spot. It actually turns out that the talk show host already planned to have Friday and Monday, April 22 and 25, off, as she was heading to Turks and Caicos for vacation with her family.

“It’s fortuitous that she had this trip planned with her husband and it wouldn’t be surprising if she stared early,” a source told People. The trip is for her and Mark Consuelos’ 20th anniversary, and was booked long before she knew any of this drama would go down.

Kelly must be happy that she already had this trip planned — she was totally caught off guard when Michael announced he’d be leaving the show for a full-time role on GMA this fall.

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As for who’s going to replace the former football star when he leaves, that’s still up in the air. “They are going to have another search and they are hoping it will be someone brand new and someone not expected,” an insider told HollywoodLife.com EXCLUSIVELY.”Someone that embodies the pleasant surprise that Kelly was when she got the job and Michael was when he got the job.”

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It’s still unclear whether or not Kelly will return to the show after her vacation is supposed to be up on Monday, but we hope she and Michael are able to work this out so they can work their last few months together in peace!

Find out more interesting facts about Kelly Ripa here on Amazon.

HollywoodLifers, what do you think of Kelly leaving early for vacation?