Photo: David E. Steele/Disney ABC
*Former “Live With Kelly and Michael” star Michael Strahan appeared to shade his former co-host in an interview on Monday.
Without naming Kelly Ripa or their show, Strahan said he worked a previous job where he “got there and realized it’s not about the team. It’s selfish, and I don’t operate well under that.”
“I’ve had jobs where I got there and felt like: Wow, I didn’t know I was supposed to be a sidekick. I thought I was coming here to be a partner,” he told the New York Times.
The former NFL player noted how he tried to heal tensions between himself and Ripa when they worked together.
“One thing I tried to do is have a meeting every few weeks with her,” he said.
“We met a few times, and that was fine. But then eventually she said she didn’t need to meet. Can’t force somebody to do something they don’t want to do.”
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RT if you miss these three! @michaelstrahan @sarahaines @KekePalmer #SSK pic.twitter.com/RsbOoEfIjG
— Strahan Sara and Keke (@StrahanSaraKeke) January 28, 2020
They may have had their issues, but Strahan admits he learned a lot from Ripa.
“If you look at the show, it really hasn’t changed since Regis started the damn thing. He created this formula. It’s kind of a plug-and-play. You learn how to craft a story. ‘What did you do last night?’, ‘Oh, I had a glass of water.’ But you learn to tell the story to make it seem like the glass of water,” he said.
“Those are things that I learned from her. She’s brilliant in that way. If people think, Oh, he hates her – I don’t hate her. I do respect her for what she can do at her job. I cannot say enough about how good she is at her job.”
Strahan took over for Regis Philbin on Live! in 2012, before exiting for a gig at “Good Morning America” in 2016.
“I was asked to do [GMA] by the people who run the network. It was really not a choice. It was a request,” he said of his Live! departure.
“But it was treated as if I was the guy who walked in and said, ‘I’m leaving.’ That part was totally misconstrued, mishandled in every way,” Strhan added.
“People who should have handled it better have all apologized, but a lot of the damage had already been done.”
