HOWIE MANDEL SCOLDS KELLY RIPA AND MARK CONSUELOS IN AWKWARD ON-AIR MOMENT: ‘I DON’T LIKE THAT’ CQ💥

Howie Mandel seemingly wasn’t impressed by a recent compliment from morning TV cohosts Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos.

During the TV personality’s Monday morning appearance on Live With Kelly & Mark, a tense moment broke out after Consuelos praised Mandel’s looks shortly after pointing out that the America’s Got Talent judge turned 70 years old in November.

“You just celebrated 70 years. You’re 70 years old,” Consuelos said, while Ripa observed that “it doesn’t make any sense” to her.

“What do you mean it doesn’t make any sense?” Mandel asked, to which Consuelos replied, “You look great!”

Mandel then snapped back, telling the couple, “I look great? That doesn’t mean anything to me. No, no, no, no. I don’t like that, because that’s a caveat.”

Ripa attempted to explain as she told Mandel, “We’re not saying you look great for 70. You look great,” though Mandel pushed back once again: “Yes you are, without saying ’70,'” he said.

“I am saying that. I am saying that,” said Consuelos, doubling down on the assertion as he confirmed that he was, indeed, saying what Mandel thought he was.

“It’s like saying you’re smart for a stupid person,” Mandel said. “Yeah,” Consuelos fired back.

Later, after the tension settled and the audience laughed, Mandel looked toward the studio crowd and quipped, “I’ll be serious for a minute. I’m gorgeous!”

A source close to the situation tells Entertainment Weekly that the exchange was “casual banter” between the cohosts and Mandel.

EW has reached out to representatives for Mandel and Live With Kelly & Mark for comment.

Live also apparently attempted to accommodate Mandel’s noted germophobia by placing a temporary partition between him and the studio audience along the pathway interview subjects usually take while walking out from backstage. Mandel, however, accidentally unlatched the rope from its holder, breaking the partition as he made his way toward Ripa and Consuelos at the start of the interview.

In other recent Mandel-related news, former America’s Got Talent contestant and current RuPaul’s Drag Race star Athena Dion recently told EW she had some words for Mandel after the judges rejected her Spice Girls-themed musical audition on a prior season of AGT: “Well, look at me now, hoe, honey! America sure does have talent, and here it is!” Athena told EW.