Kelly Ripa reveals she once jumped off a boat to "talk" to dolphins

Kelly Ripa is not only adept at what she does but she also has special skills when it comes to human-animal bonding. On the August 27 episode of the Live with Kelly and Mark show, the Hope & Faith actress said that she once jumped into the water to talk to dolphins.

However, her endeavor wasn’t quite successful as she had to get back on the boat because those were wild dolphins and not trained ones. She said,

“So I, Kelly Ripa, jump into the water and I go, I know how to talk to the dolphins!”

This anecdote came up after her husband and the show’s co-host Mark Consuelos dropped tidbits regarding how Artificial Intelligence (AI) would allow people to talk to animals and how the technology would let people interact with their household pets. Kelly Ripa then explained why all of a sudden Mark was talking about AI and communication with animals.

The incident happened during her friend’s 50th birthday party in Mexico many years ago. The friend rented a boat for sunset cocktails. However, suddenly the boat was surrounded by wild dolphins. So, she jumped into the water and started making sounds as a way to communicate with the dolphins. The talk show host continued,

“Our friend Brian was standing on the bow of the boat and he’s going Kel get back in the boat. Those are wild dolphins. Those aren’t trained dolphins.”

However, in her mind, the actress thought that she could communicate with the dolphins because she had some experience in doing so earlier when she swam with dolphins in a Seaquarium in Miami. Concerning the possible linguistic development between humans and animals through AI, Mark said that he would love to talk to their pet Lena. He is interested in understanding what their pet said to him.

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Kelly Ripa was named a Disney Legend earlier in August

On August 11, Kelly Ripa received the Disney Legend Award which is given to individuals who influence the company. The award was given to her by her friend cum former host Ryan Seacrest. The ceremony took place at the D23 The Ultimate Disney Fan Event in Anaheim, California.

However, when she first got the news that she was to be awarded a Disney Legend, it came as a surprise. In her Let’s Talk Off Camera podcast on August 21, Kelly Ripa was in conversation with Bob Iger, the CEO of Disney. She said,

“Again, one of the moments where I thought Deborah O'Connell was playing an April Fools prank on me. Why me? You needed a real person in there to sort of stabilize. There's a lot of greatness, but then they're like, Okay. How do we honor regular people? Kelly?”

The award is almost equivalent to the Disney Hall of Fame. According to Bob Iger, Kelly Ripa was a well-deserved awardee. She had multiple achievements on television including All My Children and the ongoing talk show Live! In her award acceptance speech, she said she owed everything to Walt Disney.