Disney-ABC’s Live with Kelly and Michael is already counting down the days until Michael Strahan departs on May 13 and lining up cohosts for Kelly Ripa.
First up will be Jimmy Kimmel, host of ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live, who already has a full-time job and probably isn’t throwing his hat in the ring to audition. When Regis Philbin left Live in 2011, the show took nearly a year – auditioning nearly 60 co-hosts – to find Philbin's replacement.
Following Kimmel will be Empire’s Jussie Smollett; Cedric the Entertainer, who hosted Disney-ABC’s Who Wants to Be a Millionaire in 2013-14; ABC News anchor David Muir, another one who’s probably busy enough with his own job; and Hawaii Five-O star Daniel Dae Kim, who premiered Tuesday on Broadway in The King and I.
Live executive producer Michael Gelman and team swung into action pretty quickly after learning that Strahan would be departing.
Related: Michael Strahan to Exit 'Live' on May 13
ABC originally announced that Strahan would leave this September and then move over to Good Morning America full time. Ripa staged a sick-out after she was unhappy not to have been given an earlier heads-up and then left on a previously planned long weekend. After Ripa's return on April 26, ABC said that all parties had agreed that Strahan would leave earlier, on May 13, although he still won’t be full-time at GMA until this fall.
