Mark Consuelos told Kelly Ripa that he might not leave things for their children, and she suggested that it might be time to get some lawyers.
She and Mark, former co-stars on ABC’s All My Children, eloped in 1996. They have three adult children.
On Friday’s LIVE with Kelly and Mark, the daytime duo discussed the topic of inheritance.
That included mention of pets being able to inherit one’s estate, something Kelly indicated the late hotel heiress Leona Helmsley famously did with her dog.
In 2007, Helmsley died at 87. She left $12 million to her beloved dog, Trouble, who passed away three years later.
Mark suggested he might do the same with his property as he continued the discussion about inheritance.
Mark announced his inheritance plan to Kelly and the viewers
As Mark read through an article about leaving things to pets, Kelly told her husband, “You can’t leave property to property,” regarding one’s estate.
“I’m leaving everything to Lena,” Mark announced, adding, “Because you know, you want to skip the kids. What is that? Generational skipping?”
He suggested it could be a way to save on taxes that reduce what one leaves behind.
“Lena will appreciate it. Much more than our kids will appreciate it,” Mark told Kelly.
She agreed with those sentiments, telling him it was a “great plan” as he chuckled.
“You know what? Let’s just cut to the court battle,” Kelly said, adding, “Let’s hire the attorneys now.”
The couple was joking as they laughed off the idea, but it made for a humorous discussion early in Friday’s episode.
Kelly expressed her concerns about not hearing from their kids ever again
In a segment soon after that, Kelly Ripa shared the top advice given to parents regarding their children in college.
“You shouldn’t reach out to them with communication. You should let them reach out to you,” Kelly said.
“If we waited for that to happen, I guess we’d never hear from said child again,” she added.
The advice indicated that while parents’ kids might be happy to hear from them at college, they want to make the first move with communication.
Kelly again mentioned that their kids might not make the first move, and they might never hear from them.
“What if they don’t make the first move? What if you have to make the first move?” Kelly said she asked someone backstage.
She indicated that the advice said that many college children might not like receiving Facetime calls, texts, or follow-up calls from parents who are trying to reach them.
“So we’ve been doing it wrong. We’ve been doing it wrong,” Kelly told her husband.
She and Mark Consuelos have three children: Michael, Lola, and Joaquin. Michael graduated from New York University in 2020, and Lola from New York University Tisch School of the Arts in 2021.
Joaquin decided to attend college in another state, choosing the University of Michigan.
In 2021, Kelly spoke about sending their youngest off to college elsewhere and said it was “really hard” on her.
“It’s one of those things where, you can never be ready. We’ve done it before but the other two, they stayed in New York so we knew they were there, even though their visits weren’t as frequent as we thought,” she said, per People.