Regis Philbin took the time to stand up for Kelly Ripa yesterday — with RadarOnline.com catching him defending his old co-host!
That was even after The National ENQUIRER revealed that Kelly’s bid to undermine Regis helped set up Michael Stahan’s sudden departure from “LIVE! With Kelly and Michael.”
Radar reports that Philbin slammed the ABC network for keeping the his former coworker in the dark.
“They should have told her in the beginning,” said Regis, while “LIVE!” staffers wait to see if a furious Kelly will even return to the show before Michael leaves for “Good Morning America” in September.
The ENQUIRER previously revealed the backstage battles that had started in 2013 — with an insider declaring that Kelly indulged Michael’s ego out of a need to upstage Regis!
“Kelly wanted the audience to forget that Regis ever existed…[she] could’ve put her foot down early, but she was happy to see Michael getting viewers to forget about Regis,” said the on-set source.
Radar also revealed that Regis wasn’t trashing Michael, though — saying that his replacement was “great on our show!”
