Kelly Ripa recalls uncomfortable 1999 ‘underwear model’ shoot highlighting her ‘nursing mother boobs’

Joey NolfiThu, August 13, 2026 at 4:22 PM UTC

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Regis Philbin and Kelly Ripa on ‘Live With Regis and Kelly’Credit: Spencer Platt/Newsmakers/GettyKey Points -

Kelly Ripa looked back on her one-time “underwear model” shoot with other women of ABC’s daytime lineup.

The 1999 Jockey ad sees Ripa posing in high-waisted pants and a bra.

“I’d just had a baby, so all of the oxygen I’m not expending because I’m holding in my stomach,” Ripa said.

Morning TV icon Kelly Ripa is looking back on an uncomfortable moment in her early career on television, which saw her pose as an “underwear model” in a bra for a 1999 Jockey ad alongside other women of ABC’s daytime block.

The Live With Kelly and Mark host reflected on the nearly three-decade-old modeling gig on the latest episode of her Let’s Talk Off Camera podcast (below), where her staff presented her with a gift of a real vintage print from the February 1999 shoot.

Ripa revealed that the shoot in question bubbled up as a topic after she submitted it as one of her “truths” in the game Two Truths and a Lie, but no one believed her. “Everybody’s like, ‘We know she was never an underwear model, take that off the list, that’s got to be the lie!’”

Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos on ‘Live With Kelly and Mark’Credit: DISNEY/Lorenzo Bevilaqua/Getty

The 55-year-old held a magazine clipping — which a colleague found on eBay — of the ad in her hand as she exclaimed, “Here I am!”

Ripa, who first joined Live alongside the late Regis Philbin in 2001, noted that “it’s actually from the magazine” and called the shoot “outrageous” before recalling what it was like on set that day.

“What you’re looking at here is me and my one time as an underwear model. This was a Jockey ad campaign that was shot with the women of ABC daytime. That’s me down there,” Ripa said of the image, in which she’s situated on the right, sitting down as she wears a pair of white pants and a black bra.

She continued, “Why, Kelly, do you look so exhausted and weird? Well, I’d just had a baby, so all of the oxygen I’m not expending because I’m holding in my stomach.”

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Ripa also lightly jabbed her own wardrobe. “Notice I’m the girl with the high-waisted pants because they were like, we don’t know what to do here, we’ll sit her down and put her in high-waisted jeans,” she said of the uncomfortable shoot. “I didn’t breathe for the whole eight-hour shoot. This is the proof that I was an underwear model that nobody can still believe.”

She finished her thought by adding, “I’m also a nursing mother, but you can’t believe it in this photo. These are my nursing mother boobs.”

Ripa, who’s currently on an extended absence fromLive With Kelly and Mark due to painful gum surgery, isn’t the only underwear model in her family.

On a November 2024 episode of Live, Ripa helped husband and cohost Mark Consuelos reveal his own nearly nude photo campaign for Stuart Weitzman shoes.

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“I got ahold of some of the photos from the photoshoot. Would you like to see? Believe it or not, this man is selling shoes. That’s right, shoes!” Ripa joked of the shoot’s aesthetic, which largely saw Consuelos posing in his underwear. “I was like, what? Are there shoes involved in this?” Ripa added before showing off a picture of her husband of 30 years wearing only footwear and a very small pair of underwear. “Yes, shoes. Shoes and underpants!”

Listen to Ripa discuss the shoot on Let’s Talk Off Camera above.

on Entertainment Weekly

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”