Earlier this week, Kelly Ripa, angered fans by saying that her 22-year-old son lives in "extreme poverty."
But instead of rolling over and taking the backlash, she defended her comment by further explaining her son's typical-college-student living conditions.
She said that her 22-year-old son lives in "extreme poverty," which is hard to believe, on account of his mother and father, Mark Consuelos, being pretty well-off as far as we can tell.
"I think he loves the freedom. He hates paying his own rent," she said.
Naturally, fans thought to themselves, "how could Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos' son ever truly know what 'extreme poverty' feels like?"
She explained it's a bit of a tradition for her parents to send Michael and his siblings $20 for Halloween.
I've never heard of getting Halloween money before, but candy ain't cheap.
"For years, my kids sort of ignored the $20," Kelly said. "But now that he's living on his own, he's called, like, three times. 'Has the Halloween envelope arrived?'"
But regardless, fans reacted exactly how you'd expect them to:
Badly.
Either that or she just straight-up doesn't know what extreme poverty actually is.
Some people found her comments humorously out of touch, like this person who compared her to Lucille Bluth from Arrested Development.
Some felt that Kelly should just suck it up and help her son out instead of publicly calling him out for living 'in poverty.'
She called the backlash "fake" and stuck with her original statement — that her son is, in fact, poor.
Kelly replied to this comment, and let's just say, she did not hold back.
"He is in his first non parent subsidized apt with roommates."
"They only read a headline and wag their tired fingers."
"We work and we expect our kids to as well. And the fact that a pack of fools want to [expletive] about that, I say let them," she concluded.
"Thank you! You sound rational," Kelly replied to this comment, relieved that somebody understood where she was coming from.
This person thinks people are really over-reacting to a throwaway comment that tons of parents have made about their kids learning to support themselves for the first time.
If all wealthy parents took this angle with their kids, the world would be a much better place, amirite?
They also commended her and her husband for raising their children not to be entitled.
Going through an "extreme poverty" phase in college builds character!
Are fans overreacting to what was clearly hyperbole?
