Mark Consuelos and Kelly Ripa celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary on May 1, 2026, a milestone he credits to advice from his late father, Saul Consuelos.
The LIVE with Kelly and Mark star, 55, revealed the valuable words of wisdom his dad imparted to him, which he believes helped his marriage to Kelly, also 55, last three decades.
"One of the great things my dad taught me was — and I'm not sure how we got on this conversation, maybe I was going through a breakup early on in college — he's like, 'You know, you gotta find somebody that's better than you, Mark,'" Mark shared on iHeartRadio's I've Never Said This Before with Tommy DiDario podcast.
"He didn't say marry above your station, but he said, 'Find somebody who's gonna pull you up, that's gonna make you better.' And I did. I was lucky enough to find somebody like that."
Mark revealed on LIVE on April 6 that his father had passed away in March.
"Two weeks ago today, my father passed away after a long bout with an illness. He passed away peacefully," he told the crowd, with Kelly leaning over to support him.
© Getty Images"Such a fascinating man," Mark continued, with Kelly choking up as she elaborated on how loving and intellectual her father-in-law was, calling her husband "lucky" to have him for all his life while she only knew him for 31 of those years.
Kelly and Mark have been married since 1996, when they eloped in Las Vegas one year after meeting on the set of All My Children, in which they starred as on-screen love interests, Hayley Vaughan and Mateo Santos.
© Getty ImagesDuring his recent podcast appearance, Mark admitted that the couple's fans are "super invested" in their marriage after watching them fall in love on the soap opera.
"They watched us fall in love on a soap, and they saw these two characters, like playing boyfriend and girlfriend like, 'I knew you guys were in love.' And like, yeah, we were. We really, really, really, really were," he explained.
"So I think that they're invested, super invested in our relationship," he continued. "[We've] kind of been together on TV from the beginning, and now full circle on a show in the morning. So I don't know, I think what you see is what you get."
© InstagramKelly previously said that she knew Mark was 'the one' before she even met him. "I saw my husband in a photograph before I saw him, and I knew," Kelly said during an interview on SiriusXM's Radio Andy.
"I wasn't looking to get married... but when I saw him, the photograph of him, I saw my entire future with him flash before – like I saw it. And I don't believe in any of that, but now I do. Because of that moment."
© Getty ImagesNot that marriage is always easy. Kelly has been open and honest about how they've made a success of their romance.
"Relationships, marriages are not sprints, it's a marathon," she said during an episode of LIVE when she co-hosted with Ryan Seacrest. "There's going to be like, mile 24 when you're like, 'I quit.' But you just got to push through. Just push through."
