Kelly Ripa Recalls Asking Mark Consuelos to Shave His 'Porn Mustache' But 'He Didn't Want To'

"I'd be like, 'Do we need to bring the porn 'stach? The way your hair grows, you can have it grown back by tomorrow!'" Kelly Ripa recalled of her husband Mark Consuelos' 2012 facial hair

Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos . Photo: John Lamparski/WireImage

For Kelly Ripa, 2012 will always be "the year of the porn 'stache."

On Thursday's Live with Kelly and Ryan, the Emmy-winning talk show host opened up about Mark Consuelos' facial hair history, revealing that he once rocked a mustache for an entire year despite her pleas for him to shave it.

At the time, Consuelos was growing out the look for a part he was playing, Ripa said.

"He's had every variety of facial hair a person can have," Ripa told co-host Ryan Seacrest of her husband. "He's had every kind. It's usually role driven. If you see a hair change, it's for a role."

"There was one role in particular where I call it 'The Year of the Porn 'Stache,'" she recalled. "And the pictures are still [around]."

While Ripa didn't specify what role, in a 2019 Instagram post, she previously dubbed 2012 "the year of the mustache" — sharing a throwback photo of them taken in November 2012 at the UNICEF Snowflake Ball in New York City.

"It was also the year we w ent to things, we went to events," Ripa said on Thursday, remembering how she'd be like, "'Do we need to bring the porn 'stache? The way your hair grows, you can have it grown back by tomorrow!' "

"You know, he didn't want to do that for continuity," she noted.

Rich Fury/VF20/Getty; Live with Kelly and Ryan

Ripa and Consuelos, both 51, have been married since 1996 after meeting on the set of All My Children years prior. The two share three kids: daughter Lola, 21, and sons Michael, 25, and Joaquin, 19.

While Ripa wasn't a fan of her husband's "porn 'stache," she did tell Seacrest, 47, that she doesn't universally hate him with facial hair. "It depends on the mustache," she said.

She didn't mind when he grew it out during quarantine, though was quick to call him "Magnum, P.I." in honor of his Tom Selleck-like look.

"I can take it or leave it, I like it both ways," Ripa said on Live in April 2020, Consuelos joking that the kids were a tougher sell. "They say I look like an aging porn star," Consuelos noted.

It was the opposite for Consuelos' own father, Saul. "You know my dad had a mustache," he recounted on the show, "And he still does. "Growing up, I think he shaved it once and my mom made him grow it back because he had a lot of space between his nose and his top lip."

LIVE Kelly and Ryan

Consuelos wound up shaving his self-dubbed "controversial" mustache, but has worn one for roles since, including an August 2021 episode of Riverdale alongside his son Michael.

Earlier this month, Ripa revealed on Live he shaved something else off: his head of hair, though this was in an effort to beat the summer heat, with temperatures reaching high 90s in New York City.

Sadly, it didn't have the intended results. Explained Ripa: "Everybody's been complaining about the heat, the heat, the heat, and Mark shaved his head the other day. And now he's cold all the time."

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free weekly newsletter to get the biggest news of the week delivered to your inbox every Friday.

Live with Kelly and Ryan airs weekdays in syndication (check local listings).