Kelly Ripa’s Riverdale Role Is Not What She Expected

Kelly Ripa is officially making Riverdale a Ripa-Consuelos family affair, in more ways than one. 

Not only is the Live with Kelly and Ryan host about to guest star on the series, but she just used her husband Mark Consuelos’ Riverdale family for her own family holiday card. When E! News joined Ripa and cohost Ryan Seacrest backstage after their annual holiday show, she elaborated one why she decided to ditch her actual family for the 

“Like every Christmas card in the history of our family, it was my idea, and I just got tired of fighting with my kids over them sitting down to just take a picture,” she tells us. “I mean, I start as early as June trying to get sort of a family holiday photo, and it’s always a fight, it’s always a struggle, and I was just looking at my husband’s TV family, and they’re so beautiful, and Camila Mendes and Marisol Nichols are so nice, and they didn’t mind being on our family holiday card, and I said let’s just use the Riverdale family. They look great!” 

Ripa will be guest starring on Riverdale later this season as Hiram’s mistress, Mrs. Mulwray, who is described: “confident and tough, she is Hiram Lodge’s alleged mistress. She’s a beautiful, icy, femme fatale who gets caught up in a conspiracy that’s much bigger than she initially realized.” 

Ripa herself says the script surprised her. 

“I’ve been preparing myself for this for 25 years, so I feel like I’m pretty good at playing a mistress. It’s an unexpected twist though,” she says. “It’s not what you expect. It’s not what I expected. I didn’t get my script until the day before—it’s all very carefully guarded—and my role is not what I expected at all.” 

Kelly and Mark’s 21 year-old son Michael has already guested on the series, playing a young Hiram Lodge in the flashback episode that aired earlier this season, but Ripa doesn’t want the family to overstay their welcome. 

“I promised the people at Riverdale that this was like our swan song,” she says. “I was like, we don’t want to be the three day-old fish at Riverdale, you know what I mean?

Live with Kelly and Ryan‘s holiday episode airs on Christmas Eve, and Riverdale returns to the CW on Wednesday, January 16.