Kelly Ripa would not have made it to live with Regis Philbin if she had known about the difficulties behind the scenes

Kelly Ripa looks back on her decades-long TV career.

Ripa, 52, has officially joined live – which became later Live with Regis and Kelly — in 2001, after Philbin’s longtime co-host Kathie Lee Gifford left the year before.

Now, during an appearance on Dear Media Not skinny but not fat Podcast, Ripa opened up about the journey that led to her joining Regis Philbin as a co-host live – and if she would do it again if given the chance.

“If you’re a new person joining an established show and a well-oiled machine and if you’re reading the book [her memoir, Live Wire], you know that. I’m with him in this whole fight,” she said. That’s not fair. He paid his dues and started this show, and I really champion him in this book.”

Ripa said “it’s hard” to bring “two strangers from two completely different generations” together for a show of this caliber. “It’s like very, very different people come together in this workplace and I felt for him because he was so famous and so established,” she explained.

Around the time she booked the job, Ripa said she didn’t realize she was “auditing for the show” and believed she was “just filling in for the day.”

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Robin Platzer/FilmMagic

“I’ve been told that, and I’ve been told they’re not looking for a host. And I said, ‘No problem. I already have a job. I’m very overwhelmed the way it is,'” she said. “I have a toddler. I was pregnant – nobody knew that. It’s like all these things are going on inside my head. I really had my hands full and didn’t want to go through it all again.”

For Ripa, it was “a very disturbing position to be in” when she was suddenly “handed” the opportunity.

“I have no expertise in this field, but when has that ever stopped me? But I was really very insecure about my own abilities, but I was hypersensitive to the feelings around me that this was like new and unusual territory I was wading into,” she explained. “I couldn’t tell exactly. It wasn’t until I was explained between these two fighting forces within the company that I didn’t even know it existed. i was so ignorant I was just an actor on a soap opera. I did not know anything about that.”

The story goes on

While she “can’t answer” whether Philbin would have wanted to host the show alone, Ripa believes “he certainly didn’t need me there.” The former soap actress “didn’t feel like I added anything to him at first,” though she recognized how people “connected” with her.

Had she known about the behind-the-scenes issues beforehand, Ripa’s fate on the show would have been very different.

“I wouldn’t have done it. No,” she admitted. “If I had known I was going in, I wouldn’t have done it. And how sad for me. How sad for me. Luckily, ignorance is bliss…this saying is true. There was so much bickering between these two factions and that I was considered a network girl, which is so ridiculous. I was part of a 40-person cast cast on a soap opera. So I didn’t see myself as anything of anything. I just considered myself an actor.”

RELATED: The biggest surprises from Kelly Ripa’s memoir, Live Wire: Lengthy Short Stories

David Russell/Walt Disney Television via Getty Images Regis Philbin and Kelly Ripa in 2011

Ripa said that some people initially didn’t want her in the role is also the “essence” of the hardship she experienced in the show’s earlier days. “Every time you’re the new person, will there be a level of what’s involved?” she explained.

“I think the reason audiences have embraced me, and I’m so grateful they did it so and so quickly, is because I’ve had issues publicly,” she added. “And maybe people didn’t recognize it as a struggle, but they recognized something in themselves that they saw in me — a person who was really, really insecure about what they were doing.”

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Philbin, who died in July 2020 at the age of 88, finally left the long-running show in 2011 after 24 seasons.

After a long search for Philbin’s replacement, Michael Strahan was announced as Ripa’s new co-host in 2012. But the former NFL player, 50, suddenly left the series in 2016 Good morning America. Now Ripa co-hosts the syndicated weekday morning show with Ryan Seacrest.

Live with Kelly and Ryan airs weekdays (check local listings).