A classic case of mistaken identity.
Mark Consuelos revealed during the opening of Tuesday’s episode that one excited New York City woman accidentally mistook him for former “Live” host Regis Philbin — even though the former host died in 2020.
The incident occurred when he attended Monday’s basketball game with pals Chris Rock, Tracy Morgan and John McEnroe.
“We ate in the owner’s lounge,” the “Riverdale” alum, 52, told the audience along with his wife and co-host, Kelly Ripa. “This lady thought I was Regis. She goes, ‘You’re Regis!’ I said, ‘I’m not! I’m not. But, let’s talk!’”
Ripa, 53, joined in on the joke saying that she felt the “same” about the comparison.
Ripa hosted with the late “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” emcee from 2001 to 2011 before he announced his retirement and was replaced with former NFL star Michael Strahan.
Laughing with the audience, Consuelos said that he understood where the bamboozled woman was coming from.
“She was like, ‘He’s very muscular!’ And I go, ‘That’s me,’” he went on. “If you’re watching, hi!”
Philbin died of a heart attack due to coronary artery disease at the age of 88.
While both Ripa and Consuelos’ dynamic — which has sometimes bordered on nauseating and uncomfortable — has been warm and friendly on and off screen, her relationship with Philbin started off on the wrong foot and was overshadowed by rumors of several off-screen feuds.
In Ripa’s 2022 tell-all memoir, “Live Wire: Long-Winded Short Stories,” the actress revealed that she seemed to upset Philbin on her very first day.
“I came with hair and makeup,” she told People during her press tour. “It was not an unusual thing for people on a television show to show up with.”
The TV personality expounded that the move seemed to greatly upset the late host when he and the show’s executive producer, Michael Gelman, greeted her at the door.
“Uh-oh, Gelman, it’s got an entourage,” Ripa recalled Philbin stating, adding that the comment made her “feel horrible.”
“He was probably trying to be funny, but at the same time it felt like a pile-on,” she said.
Ripa further stated that she was given a janitorial closet when she first arrived and that “it took years to earn my place there and earn things that are routinely given to the men I worked with.”
“I don’t want to feel like I’m slamming anyone or that I’m being disrespectful. But I also want people to know it was not a cakewalk,” she told the outlet.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
