Michael Strahan admits he needed a break from 'Live!'
Michael Strahan isn't exactly broken up about leaving Live!.
In his first interview since his exit from the ABC morning show in May, the 44-year-old former co-host tells Chelsea Handler that he definitely needed "a break."
"I really haven't missed it," Strahan tells the comedian in an upcoming episode of her Netflix show, Chelsea. "But I loved it. Don't get me wrong. I loved it. When you get a break, sometimes you kind of go, 'Wow, I kind of needed it.' I needed a break."
Strahan says he hasn't watched Live! since he left.
"I really haven't had a chance to watch," he reveals. "But I think I've been working so hard for the last seven or eight years since I retired from football, that it's been a relief."
Strahan's appearance on Chelsea will be available to stream on Friday at 12:01AM/PST on Netflix.
The former pro football player co-hosted Live! with Kelly Ripa starting in September 2012, before announcing in April that he was quitting the show to take a full-time job at Good Morning America. Although he had initially planned to stay on with the daytime talk show until September, he ended up leaving four months ahead of schedule.
"It's the best solution for everyone," a source close to the show told ET at the time.
Meanwhile, 45-year-old Ripa made it no secret that she was unhappy about the way Strahan's departure was handled. The mother of three took some time off after the surprise announcement, and referenced "respect in the workplace" when she returned.
But when ET caught up with Strahan in May at the 2016 Met Gala in New York City, he told us he thought "everyone got the wrong impression" of what all went down.
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