MEMO to Clay Aiken: Keep your hands off Kelly Ripa.
Ripa went on an uncharacteristic morning rant about Aiken putting his hand over her mouth on live TV to shut her up.
“It was cold and clammy and I don’t want your hand on my mouth under any circumstance!” Ripa ranted to co-host Regis Philbin on yesterday’s edition of “Live! With Regis & Kelly.”
“Unless I’m choking on a shrimp,” she added jokingly.
But it was clear she wasn’t joking about how put off she was when the former “American Idol” runner-up – who was sitting in for Philbin last Friday – put his hand over her mouth without warning.
It was during an interview with “Dancing with the Stars” winner Emmitt Smith, when Aiken apparently felt he was not getting a chance to ask any questions.
“Oh, that’s a no-no,” Kelly scolded him when he took his hand down. “I don’t know where that hand’s been, honey.”
After Friday’s show, she received a slew of phone calls from friends about the incident, including Howard Stern, who said Aiken had been out of bounds.
“There was some impropriety there,” Ripa said yesterday. “There was a lack of respect, and when you’re a certain person, you’re in the public eye, you have to be respectful of other people and I don’t think he was respectful in any way.
“If that upsets his fans, I’m sorry to hear that,” Ripa said. “But you don’t put your hand over somebody’s face and mouth!”
Philbin noted that “in my wildest dreams, [never] would I ever think that you would have a feud with Clay Aiken.”