Mark Consuelos revealed that he’d rather stay in a "loveless marriage" with Kelly Ripa than risk losing their dog Lena in a divorce.
"How do we fight over pets in a divorce?" Ripa asked in the opening segment of Tuesday's episode of "Live with Kelly and Mark," a prerecorded episode from before she was out for oral surgery.
"I mean, listen. Let’s just put it this way," Consuelos responded. "I would stay in a loveless marriage just to make sure I could be with Lena every day. That’s how much I love Lena."
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Ripa asked him sarcastically, "Is that all you’re asking for is a loveless marriage? Because that can be arranged."
Consuelos added that if he ever lost Lena in a divorce, he would "stay up at night, wondering what she is doing."
Ripa quipped that he would be "wondering if there was some other man petting her."
They were discussing a new bill in Pennsylvania that would change pets from being considered property to members of the family in a divorce, according to People.
The couple rescued Lena, a Maltese and Shih Tzu mix, in 2021 after she was featured in a pet adoption segment on the show.
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Ripa said her main worry when she adopted Lena was that she wouldn’t get along with Chewie, a Shih Tzu she adopted from a 2007 segment on the show.
Chewie died last year at 17 years old.
The two dogs got along right away, she said — but her children wanted Lena to be named after a "Star Wars" character.
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"My kids want her to be named Leia, as in Princess Leia, because we have Chewie," she said on the show soon after adopting the pup, according to People. "I don't know. I need guidance."
But the name Lena stuck.
Ripa talked about the importance of rescuing pets on the show in 2022.
"Adopt your dogs if you can, because they’re the best," she said to applause from the audience. "They’re like, ‘We’ve been in the system, we don’t want to go back. We’re going to be extra good. We’re hardly going to poop anywhere we’re not supposed to, and we’re rarely going to chew things that aren’t meant to be chewed.'"
Ripa and Consuelos have been married for 30 years and they share three children.
