‘Live’: Mark Consuelos Makes Health Confession After Unexplained Absence From Show

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Until recently, Mark Consuelos had put off an important medical procedure. Now he is opening up about it for the first time, a couple of weeks after he was absent from Live With Kelly and Mark.

Consuelos and Kelly Ripa kicked off the Monday, November 17,  episode of their show by discussing “FOFO,” a.k.a. the fear of finding out. Ripa noted that FOFO is a “bad” fear to have, especially when it comes to medical issues. “There are things you can nip in the bud, and instead, you let it get to the place where it’s [beyond repair],” she stated.

Consuelos followed up her comment by revealing that he underwent a colonoscopy for the first time “a couple weeks ago” after previously putting it off. “I’m 54 and I hadn’t had one yet, so that’s late,” he shared. (Per the Mayo Clinic, 45 is the recommended age for people to begin getting colonoscopies.)

Recalling the experience, Consuelos said he tried to “hang on” to consciousness because he “wanted to see what this felt like,” but quickly fell under anesthesia. “Afterwards, I remember sitting there, and I remember I didn’t want to say anything silly,” he told viewers. “I didn’t want to say anything silly in the recovery room, but [I] felt very rested.”

While Consuelos fought the urge to say something “silly,” his self-restraint nearly faltered after he came up with the idea to set up a nurse with his and Ripa’s 22-year-old son, Joaquin. (The couple also share son Michael, 28, and their daughter, Lola, 24.)

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“I see my nurse is this young girl, and she was adorable. She was really, really cute, and I thought, ‘She’d be amazing for my son Joaquin.’ But I shut my mouth,” Consuelos shared. “I kept it shut. I was gonna ask her if she was single. I didn’t do it. I was gonna ask her how old she was. I didn’t do it. I didn’t say anything.”

The show’s audience and executive producer Michael Gelman applauded Consuelos for holding back his comments, while Ripa joked that his questions would have been “very inappropriate” to ask.

“All I know is you came home hungry and wild. You came home, and you were like, ‘There was a nurse. I tried to set her up with Joaquin, but then I thought I shouldn’t say anything. So, I kept my mouth shut. Aren’t you proud of me?’” Ripa recalled. “And I was like, ‘Oh, lord. He’s still high.’”

When asked about his colonoscopy results, Consuelos shared, “I’m great. 10 years. I don’t have to do that again for 10 years.” Happy for her husband, Ripa quipped, “You have the best colon, the greatest colon they’ve ever seen. You have the colon of a much younger man.”

Consuelos’ colonoscopy could explain his absences from Live earlier this month. TV and radio personality Steve Patterson cohosted the show with Ripa on November 3, while the show’s announcer, Déjà Vu, acted as Ripa’s cohost on November 6. The reason for Consuelos’ absences was not explicitly shared at the time, though Ripa noted on November 6 that he had been “traveling like crazy.”