As soon as Michael Strahan announced that he was retiring from ABC’s morning show Live! With Kelly and Michael for a full-time gig on Good Morning America, speculation and hopes for who will join Kelly Ripa at the desk started flying. Now we know Kelly Ripa is upset by Michael’s seemingly sudden decision to leave – she didn’t even show up for work the morning after the announcement, but who does she want by her side every morning?
“When Regis [Philbin] left, the person Kelly wanted more than anyone else was Anderson Cooper, but he was busy launching his own talk show,” a source told PEOPLE. “Now that he’d be free, she would love it to be him.”
Another name flying around is Andy Cohen, who like Anderson has stepped in as a substitute host with Kelly on numerous occasions.
Just one problem – Kelly and those guys might be too close in real life.
“The only strike against that…is that they’re such great friends in real life it might actually hurt the host chat element of things, where they each talk about what they did the night before or over the weekend,” the source says.
My vote is still for Neil Patrick Harris, but I definitely wouldn’t mind waking up with that silver fox.
