Jimmy Kimmel joins Kelly on 'Live,' asks awkward questions about Michael Strahan's departure

On Monday morning, Jimmy Kimmel filled in as interim host with Kelly Ripa on "Live! with Kelly."They duo walked out onstage hand in hand, and once they were seated, Kimmel wasted no time asking the tough and awkward questions. "Where's Michael?" he joked.

"That's right. You don't read newspapers," Ripa said, welcoming him to the show. "It's Monday, May 16, and of course, as is tradition, whenever we relaunch the show, my first co-host is Jimmy Kimmel."

"I am so curious to know everything," Kimmel said. "Let's start at the beginning, what happened?"

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Kimmel revealed that early Monday morning, he appeared on "The Howard Stern Show," and Stern gave him some questions to ask Ripa and "Live!" executive producer Michael Gelman.

When Kimmel pulled out the sheet, Gelman looked visibly nervous, and Kimmel decided to have some fun with that by asking him the questions instead of asking Ripa.

"Gelman, will you ever talk to Michael Strahan again?" Kimmel asked and Gelman said yes. "Will he be back on the show as a guest?"

"At some point, it's possible," Gelman answered.

"Everything on the show on Friday was hugging and kissing," Kimmel started, turning to Ripa. "Was that genuine hugging and kissing?"

"Yeah, we don't fake hug and kiss," Ripa said as the audience cheered. "It was a genuine 'I'm going to miss you. Good luck.'"

Kimmel said that he read in the newspapers that all photos of Michael Strahan would be removed from the areas backstage. He said that there are "a million pictures of Michael," and Ripa had an answer for that.

"We haven't gotten around to it yet," she said.

Kimmel had a few tricks up his sleeve when it came to co-hosting. On the new rebranded mugs, he brought a dry-erase marker so that other hosts could write their names under "Live! with Kelly."

He also debuted the "Wheel of New Co-Hosts" to make it easy for Ripa to choose Strahan's replacement. Some possible options included Becky with the good hair, Kylie Jenner and Derek Jeter.

Cox Media Group