Andy Cohen Is Too Busy Running His Own Show to Co-Host Live! With Kelly Ripa

Andy Cohen has ten jobs, but hosting Live! with Kelly Ripa won’t be one of them. 

The Bravo frontman has been a highly speculated frontrunner to fill Live!‘s empty seat since Michael Strahan announced he will be leaving to join Good Morning America full-time.

After all, Cohen has all the qualities of a likely option. He has decades of experience working in television, he and Ripa are great friends and he’s an overall entertaining public figure with legions of fans to his name. 

Still, the 47-year-old executive has denied the gossip at every turn, most recently at the premiere party for the network’s Below Deck Mediterranean reality series.  

“I’ve kind of said everything I had to say about it,” he told Us Weekly about the possibility of taking on the daytime post. “I have 10 jobs!”

The man has a point. After all, he already is the host of a talk show. 

“I have my own late-night talk show that’s on every night at 11 o’clock!” he added to the magazine. 

While it doesn’t sound like we’ll be seeing Cohen and Ripa together at 9 a.m. anytime soon, he has campaigned on behalf of his friend, Anderson Cooper, to get the gig. 

“I just think he would be so good,” he said on his radio show, SiriusXM’s Radio Andy. “He would be so good co-hosting that show.”

As for Strahan’s departure, Cohen can’t make sense of the decision. 

“The job of co-hosting Live! is the greatest job in TV. She’s so good at it and he’s really good at it, and it’s a job you take and you take it for life. She’s been at that job for 15 years. I was celebrating on her 15th anniversary show about two months ago. You keep that job. You don’t go anywhere,” he said during the radio show. “So I can’t get over that he left Live! where he was co-hosting Live! With Kelly and Michael. Your name is in the freakin’ title! You can spend your life here! You can spend 15 years here and make serious bank, by the way. And still do GMA twice a week or do Pyramid or whatever else he’s doing.”

“He left and went to GMA. He is now one of five people sitting at that crowded anchor desk. It’s like 18 co-anchors and here’s my thing: What happens if the ratings don’t go up? What happens if there’s not a pickup? Then what’s going to happen to that sweet man? Honestly!” Cohen continued. “Because by then she’ll have a new co-host. I don’t know. I just don’t see how you leave the greatest team in TV to be one of five people.”