Here’s the youtube link, in case anyone missed it.
They played a funny bit from the Halloween show where Kelly dressed up as Clay and Clay pretended to be offended. It seemed like there was a lot of tension between Clay and Kelly from that point forward. The host chat segment got uncomfortable at times, and it is a credit to Kelly that she kept her cool all the way up until he touched her on the mouth.
If Clay had just laughed off the Halloween bit (which was hilarious, btw) or said something self-effacing, it would’ve worked. Instead, Clay comes off as a humorless, self-conscious dick.
I can’t think of many things that are ruder or more disrespectful than putting your hand over a person’s mouth. Frankly, if someone put his hand over my mouth, my first impulse would be to kick him in the crotch. So, Clay’s lucky he didn’t pull that shit with me.
As for the homophobe angle – well, the 'I don’t know where that’s been" joke is a pretty standard one. I wouldn’t leap to calling it homophobic. More like “keep your filthy hands away from my mouth, you socially retarded idiot!” I mean, who does that?
While putting a hand over someone’s mouth is totally unprofessional, Aiken is not a professional morning TV host (that I know of). And Ripa’s comment did sound homophobic to me, however unintentional. That Aiken is gay is not-so-secret and in the tabloids. If Ripa had said ‘I don’t know where that hand’s been’ to a female co-host who was consistently portrayed by the media as promiscuous, I’d also find the comment offensive.
Do you really need to be a gee-whiz golly gee honest-to-goodness professional morning TV host to know how to keep your hands to yourself? I think we cover that pretty soundly in grade school.
Even if Clay would have done that when they were doing the top of the show chit-chat, it would have been rude. But to do it while you have two guests you should be interviewing makes it even ruder.
I could find a homophobe at a GLAAD convention, and I say Ripa’s comment was not homophobic. Not demonstrably, that is. I mean, she may be a homophobe, and she may have meant the interpretation that Rosie O’D’ed on, but if that’s the case then she covered her tracks well and maintained full deniability. “You don’t know where it’s been” is a tried and true cliche/joke that has no implicit gay overtones. Hell, I say that about my own hands all the time.
Clay Gayken came off as a latently (wait for it) hostile dork with a bad sense of what’s funny, Ripa overreacted to the point of non-professionalism, and Rosie–much as I’m not in the forefront of her haters–is the mountains-from-molehills jerk in the story.
In Kelly Ripa’s defense, she does have three kids, all under 10 years of age. She probably makes that remark to her children all of the time. I agree, it didn’t sound like a homophobic comment, cold and flu viruses are commonly spread from hand to mouth.
And here is Kelly Ripa’s response on yesterday’s View.
I gotta say, if someone covered my mouth with their hand, I would have said something far harsher than “I don’t know where that hand has been.” You don’t need to be a professional talk show host to know that’s disgusting and disrespectful.
And, I’m even willing to admit that I like Rosie, but she is so so so far off base here.
I watched the “incident” on iFilm. Honestly, just the words that she said (“I don’t know where that hand’s been, honey”) could have been taken several different ways. But the WAY she said it seemed that she was implying something dirty/sexual about where his hand had been. I think the implication of her tone was not cool. I thought it was offensive. Homophobic? I’m not sure. “I hear dirty rumors about what you do in your private life”? Kinda sounded like that to me.
I don’t know about you, but where I grew up, that’s rude in ANY situation. “Universally rude” is a subset of “unprofessional,” and Aiken should have known better.
I’ll agree with those who don’t think Ripa’s comment was meant to be taken as homophobic. It wasn’t as though she said, “I don’t know where that hand has been, but it tasted like dick.” It was just a common remark about keeping your parts to yourself.
First I heard of it was Mark and Brian* in the background as I got ready for work this morning. I heard the name “Clay Aiken”, the name “Kelly Ripa”, and the comment, “We don’t know where that hand has been!” The first thing that crossed my mind was: “Damn you, Bill Maher! You’ve gone and wrecked it for everybody!”
*Morning Drive guys on the radio in Socal (and certain syndicated regions).
Gawker has some nice photos/footage/links of Ripa acting quite unprofessionally herself (hands on mouths, hands on her mouth, etc.). As usual, the eds there put it best:
But Kelly Ripa has a much closer relationship to Regis Philbin than she does to Clay. There’s an element of physical comedy to Regis and Kelly that’s built into the show and that they both expect. Aiken isn’t on such close terms with Ripa, which is what makes what Aiken did really rude.
As with most other questions as to what types of touching are appropriate, context is everything.
That is actually how 90% of the usual jokes sound on her show - so it sounded like the same kind of remark she would have made to Regis on any other day of the show. Not outwardly homophobic, just open ended inuendo-ish. Kind of like adding “if you know what I mean” to the end of any sentence.
