Clay Aiken just addressed his infamous feud with Kelly Ripa, followed by Rosie O’Donnell accidentally outing him on live TV, 20 years after the uncomfortable incidents.
During the June 24 episode of the Hollywood Raw podcast, the American Idol Season 2 runner-up — who finished second to Ruben Studdard in 2003 — finally opened up about the 2006 talk show drama. It all went down in 2006, when Aiken guest-co-hosted Live With Regis and Kelly while Regis Philbin was out on a Friday. At one point, Aiken playfully placed his hand over Ripa’s mouth after she kept skipping over his cue cards to ask their guests questions.
“Is that a no-no?” Aiken, now 47, asked afterward, as she looked visibly stunned.
“Oh, that’s a no, no, no,” Ripa, now 55, replied. “I don’t know where that hand’s been, honey.”
The following Monday, Ripa brought up the tense moment with Philbin (who died in 2020) on Live. “There was a lack of respect, and when you’re a certain person, you’re in the public eye, you have to be respectful of other people,” she said on the talk show. “And I don’t think that he was respectful in any way. If that upsets his fans, I’m sorry to hear that, but you don’t put your hands over somebody’s face and mouth when they’re conducting an interview, even if it’s for a laugh. And that’s all I’m gonna say.”
Unfortunately for Aiken, the public commentary didn’t end there. On The View, O’Donnell, now 64, called Ripa’s reaction “homophobic,” prompting the Live co-host to call into the show. Ripa defended herself against O’Donnell’s claim, explaining, “I have three kids. He’s shaking hands with everybody in the audience. I mean, it’s cold and flu season. That’s what I meant. To imply that it’s anything homophobic is outrage.”
Fast-forward 20 years, and Aiken was asked if he and Ripa ever made up after the mouth-covering incident. Aiken said they hadn’t, telling Hollywood Raw, “Listen, I didn’t have the problem. I wasn’t the one who was upset. We have been at a few places at the same time… Maybe I should feel bad, but I have not gone up and said something myself. But she hasn’t either.”
Aiken also acknowledged that the talk show moment “became this huge blow-up,” describing it as the “most catastrophic week of my life.” He explained, “I wasn’t getting to talk. Like, there were cue cards. They had my name on them. So I tried to be funny, and I did what I did, which was incredibly innocent. And then it got a little cold in the room. I felt bad, and I was really worried that I had upset her.”
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Of O’Donnell saying that Ripa’s remarks were “homophobic,” Aiken pointed out, “I was not out at the time. I was to Rosie, I was out to people who I knew, but I wasn’t publicly out about it. I was not out to my grandparents and, you know, people in my family.”
He continued, “And not only does Rosie call it a homophobic remark — which I think she accidentally said, and then she tried to walk it back a little bit — but then Kelly calls in live to The View that day and they get into an argument… I was caving in on myself. So it was a lot.”
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