Kelly Ripa & Kim Kardashian (AP)
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Kelly Ripa is looking for a new “husband.”
“It’s like a group date,” says the petite, 5-foot-4 former cheerleader from Jersey while relaxing in the green room of “Live! With Kelly.” She’s cheekily referring to the process of auditioning co-hosts live on TV — everyone from Reggie Bush to Neil Patrick Harris to Jerry Seinfeld — since Regis Philbin’s retirement from the show in November.
Unwinding in the cream-colored room backstage (adorned sparingly with a picture of Ripa holding a heart that says “Tweet me @livekelly”), Ripa’s sporting a green kimono top and impossibly high black heels that she calls her “flats” and an assortment of fun jewelry including a gold-handcuff charm necklace that real-life husband, actor Mark Consuelos, bought her for Christmas. (“And by Christmas present from Mark, I mean: I cut it out of the magazine, and I leave it on his pillow, with the name of the store and the name of the sales associate that is waiting for him to show up.”)
The two of them have three children: 14-year-old Michael, 10-year-old Lola and 8-year-old Joaquin, for whom she actually minimizes their TV watching. She reveals: “The most they’ve ever seen of our show has been on Taxi TV. My youngest son, Joaquin, was really funny about that, because he said, “Do you work for the Taxi Commission?”
Ripa, 41, who goes by many different names (Philbin used to call her “Pippa” and Consuelos very adorably calls her “boo”) jubiliantly explains to The Post what qualities make for the perfect TV marriage.
“You have to be irreverent, low maintenance, a spontaneous conversationalist and there is no room for ego,” she says.
Oh, and a little faux sexual tension can’t hurt, either.
“Yeah, there has to be some of that present at all times,” Ripa acknowledges. “Even if it’s two women side by side. Because nobody wants to watch two girls play with their hair. Although we did get a lot of tweets about this [when Kim Kardashian co-hosted] like, ‘I wish you two girls would just play with each other’s hair.’ ”
But with the numbers up since Philbin’s exit, “Live!” has quite notably experienced the most growth of any syndicated talk show, hitting No. 1 in its time period in 60 percent of all markets and reaching an average of 3.7 million viewers each day. Which begs the question, if Ripa’s doing so well on her own, why does America’s sweetheart need a new fake hubby at all? Executives behind “Live! With Kelly” say that having a permanent pairing of co-hosts is integral to the show’s institutional success, so they’re taking their sweet time to find the perfect match.
“We’re dating,” says executive producer Michael Gelman of the search for Ripa’s co-host. “This is the faux husband and wife who get up every morning, their famous friends come over and the audience has coffee with them. They’re just like you and I, except maybe a little funnier and better looking.”
The secret to Ripa’s success, as her close friend and former guest co-host Anderson Cooper tells The Post, is in her support. “Kelly is smart, sexy, friendly and real,” Cooper says. “Live TV is like a trapeze without a net, but with Kelly as a partner you always know she’s going to help you reach greater heights and catch you if you make a mistake.”
Like when recent co-host Dana Carvey accidentally lost a Skype connection with a viewer when he jokingly slammed down a laptop computer on the show. “That moment was magic,” Ripa observes backstage. “He was so stunned when we lost her, and I was like, ‘This is gold!’ I’m sure that he felt terrible but that’s the thing to let everybody know: This is going to be the fastest hour of your life. The thing to instill in a co-host, and this was told to me: You can’t screw it up here.”
She pauses and adds with a wry sarcastic smile: “Unless you go on some profanity-laced, drug-induced breakdown wielding a gun.”
Yes, that dry, brutal wit is what hip, modern audiences like, says Andrew Donchin, director of media investments for Carat, the largest independent media services company. “She’s funny, she’s spunky, she’s perky, she’s engaging,” and he says of the dating analogy: “Right, but now she’s wearing the pants, apparently. Because she’s sitting in Regis’ chair.”
Oh, that? Ripa laughs, and says, “It wasn’t symbolic at all. Regis and I always say that we have the same good side. When he told us he was going to be leaving the show, I looked at him and said, ‘I’m going to get the good side.’ The swapping of the chairs was me being vain.”
At a recent taping of the show with co-host Kristin Chenoweth, the manic energy of live TV was completely in swing. Gelman, who had warmed up the audience, ran the time cues like a well-oiled machine, and Ripa actually dipped into the audience between commercial breaks whenever she could, at one point revealing, “I have no edit button. I have no control over what I say.”
And the audience loved it. Says audience member Bea Demirakos, 43, a restaurant owner from Long Island, “I didn’t expect her to relate so much to the audience, you know? She looks you right in the eye. And I’ve been to other talk shows. She’s very relatable and personable.”
Or as Michelle Travis, 46, a stay-at-home mom on Long Island puts it: “Now that she’s running the show, it’s a lot on her. She’s got to be on her game 100 percent. And then some.”
Other TV hosts are taking notice, too. NY1’s Pat Kiernan, whose fans have started a campaign for him to co-host the show, says, “The amazing thing is how easy she’s made it for her co-hosts. She’s made the conversation effortless.”
TV Guide L.A. bureau chief Michael Schneider looks at her new co-host choice another way: “When Kelly replaced Kathie Lee Gifford, that’s considered one of the most successful transitions in TV history. They’re trying to emulate it again and the ratings are up. But a good co-host — like a good man — is hard to find.”
Gelman, the show’s notoriously shrewd executive producer, won’t commit to when the choice will be made, and in the meantime, Ripa will continue to bring home potential new Mr. Rights.
“I’m the matchmaker,” Gelman laughs. “I’m the yenta. Listen, at some point we’re going to realize we’ve got The One. We’ll go steady. Then we’ll get engaged — and then eventually marriage will happen.”
Until then, the Single Girl thing suits New York just fine.
mstadtmiller@nypost.com