When it comes to fighting cancer, all women - including celebrities - have got to stick together. That was the message from Kelly Ripa Wednesday, as she hosted an event to kick off Ovarian Cancer Month.

“A friend was diagnosed %26#91;with the disease%26#93; and I wanted to learn more about early detection,” she told PEOPLE at the Electrolux-sponsored fund-raiser. “It’s my mission to get the word out.”

Ripa also took the opportunity to praise Christina Applegate, who has been public about her battle with breast cancer and recent double mastectomy.

“It takes a lot of courage to come forward and help other women and to get ahead of %26#91;the disease%26#93; like that,” Ripa said of the Samantha Who? star. “It really made me call my doctor to get tested.”
- Liz McNeil

You think there’d be a little professional rivalry between Kelly Ripa and Kathie Lee - but you’d be wrong.

In fact, Ripa - Regis Philbin’s current cohost - could not be more thrilled for her predecessor, who just landed a co-host gig on the fourth hour of NBC’s Today show.

“I’m so exited for her,” Ripa, 37, gushed to PEOPLE Thursday. “Everybody’s like, ‘Have you ever met her?’ I’m like, met her? I know her intimately! I’m so happy for her.”

The two women worked together on an episode of Ripa’s now-defunct sitcom, Hope %26 Faith, but Ripa says she was a fan of Gifford, 54, from her early days on Live with Regis %26 Kathie Lee.

“She’s very influential in my life,” said Ripa, who replaced Gifford on the show in 2001. “I saw her doing it all - a working mom. She had a big impact on me.”

Happy Homemaker

These days, it’s Ripa - who’s married to actor Mark Consuelos - who’s known as the quintessential working mother (to Michael, 10, Lola, 6, and Joaquin, 5). That might explain her newest role, star of a spring ad campaign for Electrolux kitchen appliances. (She’s also helping the company raise cash for the Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation.)

As an added bonus, the company hooked her up with a kitchen full of new goodies. “It’s gorgeous,” she said.

Video courtesy Buena Vista Entertainment
After falling ill during Tuesday’s show, Kelly Ripa returned to Live with Regis %26 Kelly on Wednesday, only to have Regis Philbin suggest she’d had a bout of morning sickness and a heckler compare her to Marie Osmond.

“I’ve got my own theories, and let me tell you: She’s pregnant again!” Philbin joked at the beginning of the program, adding, “I’ve been through it twice now!”

Ripa, 37, was quick to squash that rumor. “No, no,” she said. “That would be nice, though. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

“The lady’s calling me Marie Osmond!” Ripa said. “Thank you, ma’am! It’s nice to get heckled the day after I recover.”

Ripa had a more sympathetic audience the night before, she said, as her parents took care of her. (Before she got sick, her husband, Mark Consuelos, returned from the Live set in the Bahamas to New York.)

“My parents, who are sitting here in the second row, took care of me all night,” Ripa said. “They gave me cold compresses and nice hot tea, and they really took care of me. There’s nothing like your parents taking care of you when you’re not feeling well.”

Ripa won’t be on the air on Thursday, however. Immediately after Tuesday’s program, Philbin taped a second show with wife Joy as co-host.

“Tomorrow, Joy will be here, and you won’t, and they’ll say, ‘My God, she really is pregnant!’ ” Philbin said.

Video courtesy Buena Vista Entertainment
Kelly Ripa left the set of Live with Regis %26 Kelly halfway through Tuesday morning’s telecast, and Regis Philbin explained later in the show that she had not been feeling well.

The program was being broadcast outdoors from the Atlantis resort in the Bahamas. Early on, Ripa seemed uncharacteristically low-energy and sipped frequently from a drink on the cohosts’ table. She made it through the opening segment and an interview with Project Runway judge Tim Gunn, but did not return after the halfway mark of the show.

She did not return.

Ripa’s rep, Stan Rosenfield, said in a statement, “It’s a little case of the flu and she didn’t do the second show. That’s all. It’s holiday season and it’s flu season, even in the Bahamas.”

Live is broadcasting all this week from the Paradise Island resort.

Later, Philbin told Extra, “I thought she was pretty brave to come out and try to finish the whole show, but under the sun and everything, I guess she got a little warm.”

Ripa is expected back on the show Wednesday.

Kelly Ripa has a simple formula for making her butt look good: buy the tightest jeans around, do a clever little lift-and-push, and presto.

“I buy jeans that are tight in the rear end. I’m not kidding,” Ripa tells Fitness magazine in its December/January issue. “I treat my cheeks like breasts in a push-up bra. I just reach down in there, lift them up and push them together. And they’ll stay put if the jeans are tight enough in the seat.”

The Live with Regis %26 Kelly co-host, 37, recently began exercising with a vengeance, and says her vanity is what kept her motivated to stick with it.

Ripa certainly knows what it’s like to feel tired and out of shape. When she was pregnant with her and Mark Consuelos’s first child, she gained 68 pounds. Back then, it fell to her husband to make her feel good.

“Mark made me feel like the Queen of Sheba every day - ‘You’re so beautiful, you’re so gorgeous,’ ” she says. “At this point, we’ve been married too long for him to say, ‘Oh, you look so hot in that!’ ”

Ripa’s commitment to a healthy lifestyle goes beyond her personal workout routine. She’s currently supporting HEART for Women, a bill before Congress that requests funding for and education about gender-related aspects of cardiovascular health.

But, she does admit to one major health fear. “I used to smoke, so lung cancer is the thing that keeps me awake at night,” she reveals. “I worry, ‘Did I quit in enough time? Did I do it for too long?’ It’s one of those things where I think, ‘Boy, what a foolish thing I did.’ ”