In 2016, Michael Strahan left many baffled when he announced that he was leaving Live with Kelly and Michael, which he hosted with former actress Kelly Ripa.

Many rumors have hit the Internet about the former TV duo, and the ex-athlete had remained quiet, that is, until now.

The former NFL star sat down with The New York Times, where he spoke about his former colleague.

The 48-year-old said he tried to have a working relationship with Ripa, but she was not interested.

He stated: “One thing I tried to do is have a meeting every few weeks with her. We met a few times, and that was fine. But then eventually, she said she didn’t need to meet.”

The TV host went on to explain: “Can’t force somebody to do something they don’t want to do…certain things that were going on behind the scenes just caught up.”

During the interview, Strahan confessed that his departure from the morning show “could have been handled better.”

He added: “I didn’t wake up and say, ‘I want a job at GMA.’ I was asked to do it by the people who run the network. It was really not a choice. It was a request.”

Strahan said that this is how he felt when the news he would be leaving Live hit social media and TV outlets: “It was treated as if I was the guy who walked in and said, ‘I’m leaving.’ That part was totally misconstrued, mishandled in every way. People who should have handled it better have all apologized, but a lot of the damage had already been done. For me, it was like: Move on. Success is the best thing. Just keep on moving.”

He went on to say that he does not hate Ripa and praised her: “I learned so much from Kelly, so much from [executive producer] Michael Gelman. If you look at the show, it really hasn’t changed since Regis [Philbin] started the damn thing. He created this formula. It’s kind of a plug-and-play. You learn how to craft a story. ‘What did you do last night?’ ‘Oh, I had a glass of water.’ But you learn to tell the story to make it seem like the most interesting glass of water. Those are things that I learned from her. She’s brilliant in that way.”

He added: “If people think, ‘Oh, he hates her’ — I don’t hate her. I do respect her for what she can do at her job. I cannot say enough about how good she is at her job.”

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It will be interesting to see if Ripa will react to all of this.