Kelly Ripa Goodbye Speech to Regis Philbin (WATCH): End of an Era!
Regis Philbin ended his 28 year stint on morning television with a kiss blown to his audience.
He signed off his final episode of Live! With Regis and Kelly with a promise:
“I’ll always remember spending the mornings with all of you.”
It may feel strange to think of morning news with our Philbin, but we can hardly hold retirement against him – he is 80 years old, after all. He’s logged more than 17,000 hours on television, according to Newsday, and his career dates back to the 1960′s. Philbin didn’t just stick to mornings, either. For a while a decade ago, you couldn’t turn on prime-time TV without seeing Philbin, either hosting or promoting Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.
Philbin’s co-host, Kelly Ripa, had to struggle not to cry as she reminiscent about her start on the show when she replaced Kathie Lee Gifford as Philbin’s partner.
“You always want to make me feel like a million bucks, always,” she said (see video below).
Gifford was in the audience for her former partner’s last day, but didn’t come on stage. The audience was, in fact, packed with familiar faces. Katie Couric, Donald Trump, Alan Alda, Meredith Vieira and Tony Danza all sat in attendance for Philbin’s last show, and others, like Justin Timberlake and Anne Hathaway, chimed in with filmed tributes.
Ripa’s predecessor, Kathie Lee Gifford, was in the audience but had no role in the finale.
Philbin says his immediate plans include a tour to promote his new book, How I Got This Way. Beyond that? Well…
“Where’s Regis going?” he said. “Regis doesn’t know. Stop asking me!”
Bon Voyage, Regis!
