Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos Get into On-Air Spat After She Proposes They Get ‘an Airport Divorce’  

Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos’ travel habits are putting their marriage to the test.

During Live with Kelly and Mark on Wednesday, Oct. 22, the cohosts and longtime couple got into a playful on-air spat after Ripa suggested they consider “an airport divorce” — a trend in which duos separate once they arrive at the airport and only reunite when they’re at the gate.

“Couples are doing something unique and I want to run this by you,” Ripa, 55, began. “I think we could do well with this: an airport divorce. [Because] you and I have different traveling philosophies, different traveling styles.”

Consuelos, 54, immediately jumped in to defend himself. “What do you mean? Like, I walk fast in the airport?” he asked.

Ripa replied that her husband’s need to arrive hours before a flight often leads to tension. “You need to get there before 4 to 16 hours before a flight takes off,” she teased, prompting Consuelos to protest “that’s not true” and clarify that he simply likes to arrive about 90 minutes early.

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Their bickering continued as Ripa accused Consuelos of getting “irritated” when fans approach him while waiting to board at the airport gate — something he quickly denied. “Don’t put that out there,” he said. “I’m very nice to people. That’s not cool.”

“You are very nice to people, but you get irritated with me,” Ripa said.

“No. I don’t get irritated with you,” Consuelos said. “I’m irritated with you right now for trying to throw me under the bus.”

But Ripa wasn’t finished. She went on to recall a recent airport incident when Consuelos’ TSA PreCheck had temporarily lapsed. Out of solidarity, she said she decided to forgo her usual fast-track line to wait with him, but things didn’t go smoothly.

“The line was too slow and he got irritated with me!” Ripa told the audience. “And I said, ‘No no no, this isn’t the part where you’re irritated with me because the line is too long. This is the part where you say, ‘Thank you honey, I’m sorry that I’m making you wait in this line.’”

Consuelos laughed but offered his version of events, insisting the story wasn’t quite so one-sided. “You go through life, 30 years you know somebody. And then when they tell a story, it’s like, ‘Who are you?’” he teased. “Because I was there, and she was there, and the perspective is so different.”

According to Consuelos, the tension came down to a simple disagreement about which line to join. “There was a fork in the road — go left or go right — and I said, ‘Let’s go this way,’ ” he explained, implying that his wife went the other way. “But I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it, so I just let it go.”

As the audience groaned, Ripa quickly defended herself, claiming her husband was not only wrong about what happened, but also was putting his anger in the wrong place.

“My line was straight ahead, where the people sailed through because they still had their TSA privileges,” she said. “But now I’m with Mark, so my shoes are coming off and everything’s being taken out of my bag. I am being violated in this line — and Mark is still irritated with me!”

“The airport divorce is what we are definitely getting,” she joked.

Later in the syndicated morning show, Ripa and Consuelos continued to bicker, this time while discussing a recent report that said hand-washing a car was better for a vehicle than going through a car wash.

“I don’t have time — well first of all I never drive — but I think my life is too short to add car washing [by hand] to it,” Ripa said. “I feel like whoever got the car dirty, it’s their responsibility to wash the car. And if I’m a perpetual passenger, that’s not my problem.”

“Okay, so, how about inside the car?” Consuelos quipped back, as Ripa defensively asked what she did wrong. “Let’s start with, let’s get some Windex and maybe you’ll wipe off the feet prints on the windshield because the first thing you do is you put your bare feet on the dash, and I’m staring at your toe prints when you’re not there. I see toe prints on the windshield. You can start there.”

Seething at him, Ripa said, “I’ve got to stretch!”

After a pause, Consuelos summed up their morning of back-and-forths, admitting, “We’re having a day today.”

“Oh, you are going down,” Ripa said, hinting that their disagreement would be continuing off-air. “You are going down!” 

“Just watching married people quarrel on TV. It’s fun!” Consuelos later joked. “Mom and dad, fighting again!”

Live with Kelly and Mark airs weekdays in syndication (check local listings).