Kelly Ripa, 51, EXCL: She flashes her legs as she reveals she once passed out while having sex

Kelly Ripa still looks as good as ever at 51, which she proved again this week.

The morning show princess looked radiant in a new cover story for Haute Living, shot by Miller Mobley, which DailyMail has been given a first look at.

The Live with Kelly and Ryan host is releasing Live Wire: Long-Winded Short Stories, available on September 27 from Dey Street Books.

In the chapter titled Don’t Let Your Husband Pick Your Death Clothes she said she passed out when having sex with All My Children co-star Mark Consuelos. 

They already had six-month old Michael.

She later found out she passed out because she had a twin pair of ovarian cysts.

She writes: ‘My eyes shift between the fuzzy images on the screen, the remnants of my ovarian tormentor, and Mark happily snacking away. 

‘Sex can be so traumatic I think, and yet one of us is completely undaunted. There he is, happily munching on the saltines now and ordering a second apple juice. Mark could be at a movie, or a spa. 

‘Instead, I’m flat on my back wondering when the other two cysts will burst.’ 

She said when she passed out, her husband dressed her in his clothes to go to the hospital. 

She added, ‘Also, here is my husband, who is, dare I say, stylish, well-dressed at all times, and yet he dressed me like a dime store prostitute in my time of need. 

‘It’s still baffling to me to this day that this is the best costume for the day that he could find for me, to the point where, when I was on the stretcher, I thought I was dreaming; I was having a nightmare. I didn’t realize I had come to.’

Her favorite chapter is The Good News: You Can’t Die From Embarrassment.

She talks her crush Richard Gere from An Officer and a Gentleman.

It was Anjelica Huston’s birthday and she sat next to Gere when a woman got sick; they came to her aid. 

Months later, they ran into each other at a different mutual friend’s party, when Ripa approached Gere saying, ‘Do you remember when we saved that woman’s life at Jane Buffet’s house during Anjelica’s birthday party?’ 

After a long pause, he said, ‘You were there?’

Ripa told HL, ‘I was clearly the person that didn’t belong in that room, because you know that Mark was like, “You’re not bringing an autograph book to a party” and I was like, “What if someone amazing is there?”‘

And then she noted that even though she is a celebrity herself she is not used to being around them unless they are on her show. 

‘I’m not used to being around celebrities in the wild. In fact, I’m so unused to it that in my mind, I cast myself as Richard Gere’s co-star,’ she said.

‘To this day, I still revere Richard Gere,’ she shared from her book.

But she may not say hello to the actor again. 

‘I don’t know that I would ever have the comfort level to approach him again; it was such a big moment in my mind. And that he couldn’t recall that I was even there tells you everything you need to know about my life. I’m always more impressed than everybody else,’ wrote Ripa.

She also said her husband pushed her to write the book: ‘It’s funny: Mark was my biggest champion in the whole process. He read it with the eye of not just a person reading it because they had to save their own marriage, but with the eye of a reader. He would recall things that he found pertinent, or relevant, or language that he didn’t understand.’

She then said she was not sure if she could even write, and she is still ‘extremely unconvinced.’

Kelly then said: ‘I found the entire process to be overwhelming and exhausting, especially with the editing.’

Kelly continued, ‘Sitting with [my publisher], going through things she thought should come out, while I was like, “No, that needs to stay in.”

‘Just knowing that Mark was there through all of it, and very, very tolerant of me discussing our lives in the way that I did, thinking for sure that he would say, “You can’t put that in there.”

‘There was only one chapter that he told me I could never, ever put into that book, or any book, and I took it out. I respected him, I respected it, and I was like, “I hear you, even though it’s the best chapter. I’ll honor your request to take it out.”‘

She also said she and Mark have a normal relationship: ‘It’s all very black and white: We fight,’ she said.

‘And I think that’s the key to a good marriage, because you fight when you’re passionate. If we stopped fighting, I’d be concerned. We’re fine here, because we still get into it.

‘You know,’ she added, ‘I was worried when we became empty nesters. 

‘It was one of the great turning points of our lives, and I thought to myself, “Oh sh*t, we’re going to be that couple that it ends as soon as the kids are out of the house.” 

‘I don’t know why one argument led me to believe that, but I do tend to have a flair for the dramatic. 

‘Plus, men and women argue differently. For him, a passing argument is no big deal, but for me, it’s like, “Well, I guess I have to call the divorce attorney.” He’s like, “Um, what? Are you okay?”‘

Ripa also said that Mark is the ‘hottest man on earth,’ but also the most ‘normal.’

‘First of all, he’s good at math, so there’s that, and second of all, he has no ego; neither one of us do,’ wrote Ripa. ‘We’re literally two people pushing each other up the hill as opposed to one trying to climb up the other one to get up the hill. We’re a team.’