Stacy London and Clinton Kelly are friends again.
The former “What Not to Wear” co-hosts reunited publicly for the first time in a decade on TODAY with Hoda & Jenna Thursday, and revealed they have put their much-publicized feud behind them.
“After seeing the same clickbait story over and over and over on Instagram about how much we hated each other, I was like, ‘I can’t take this anymore.’ Because we don’t really hate each other. We love each other, as a matter of fact,” Kelly said on TODAY.
London sat close to him on the sofa, nodding along as he spoke.
“We have very strong feelings toward each other,” Kelly continued. “So I reached out to Stacy and I was like, ‘Can we put this behind us? Let’s talk it out.’ And we had a really emotional conversation. It was during the pandemic, sort of as the pandemic was ending. And we just talked through it all.”
“Oh, I sobbed my eyes out,” London chimed in about the reconciliation process.
"I let it all hang out," she added later. "I told Clinton everything that made me sad, everything that hurt me, every way I thought I hurt him. All the petty grudges, all the stupid crap.”
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London, 54, and Kelly, 54, co-hosted TLC’s “What Not to Wear” from 2003 to 2013.
By all outward appearances, the two were a reality TV dream team. With their witty banter and brutally honest yet caring fashion advice, they were on a mission to help women (and some guys, too) value themselves and their own beauty.
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Their bickering on screen seemed light-hearted, but hints of possible deeper tensions behind the scenes surfaced in 2017, when Kelly revealed London had blocked him on Twitter.
Earlier that year, Kelly had also been blunt about his conflicted feelings toward London, writing in a collection of essays that he “either adored her or despised her, and never anything in between.”
Now, London and Kelly say they “forgave each other” and are starting a new chapter.
“I think part of that is, you know, what I said about evolution. When you grow up a little bit — and we did grow up together on television — there was a lot of points of pride that I don’t think either of us were willing to cop to,” London said.
The pair also made a big announcement: a decade since they last worked together, they are collaborating once more.
“Now, we’ve decided, we have this great chemistry, we make each other laugh, we finish each other’s sentences, why aren’t we sharing this with the world? So we’re going on tour,” Kelly said.
The Stacy & Clinton Show is a 10-city live tour, kicking off in Birmingham, Alabama on Oct. 5 and wrapping up in Austin, Texas, on Oct. 18.
“We’re going to stand up and we’re going to talk about the behind-the-scenes stories of ‘What Not to Wear,’” Kelly explained.
“Lots of goss!” London interjected.
“The big feud, we’ll go through that,” Kelly continued. “We’ll do lots of audience participation, like if people want style advice, our updated style advice.”
As their tour website playfully notes, “If you feel like coming dressed as a WNTW mannequin from back in the day (structured jacket, printed blouse, dark-wash-mid-rise-straight-leg jean, pointy-toe shoe and statement necklace), we would not hate it.”
The pair also hinted they might be up for returning to television together someday.
“Want to do a TV show with me someday? OK, maybe!” Kelly said, and high-fived London.
Looking back on their relationship, the former co-hosts reflected on the importance of forgiveness.
“If you don’t forgive, you’re only hurting yourself,” Kelly said. “It’s the only way to be in the moment. If you’re always holding onto a grudge, you’re not living in the present.”
“One thing I’ll say about forgiveness is if you don’t let go of it, the famous line is, it’s like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die,” London added. “So do not hold onto grudges. Don’t do it. Find a way through.”
For anyone who needs a refresher about Kelly and London’s falling out, here’s what to know about their previous feud.
Kelly said he both ‘loved’ and ‘loathed’ London in his 2017 book
Kelly wrote candidly about his relationship with London in his 2017 collection of essays, “I Hate Everyone, Except You,” and he did not hold back about his mixed feelings toward his former co-host.
“For the first five years we worked together, I either adored her or despised her, and never anything in between, probably because we spent nearly sixty hours a week in captivity, rarely more than an arm’s length away from each other,” he wrote.
“Trust me when I tell you that is just too much time so spend with any other human being you didn’t choose of your own free will.”
He added that he and London sometimes joked that they were “like a brother and sister trapped in the backseat during an excruciatingly long car trip.”
Kelly also said he loved London because she was “charming as hell” and that he had met “few people so good as she at making others feel decidedly special.”
The style expert also didn't shy away from some of his harsher feelings toward his former co-host. He said he sometimes “loathed” London because of what he saw as her constant “jockeying” for attention.
“There’s a part of me that will love Stacy forever, and a part of me that would be just fine if I never saw her again for the rest of my life,” he wrote.
“We had great chemistry, for sure," he continued. "But just like when you combine baking soda and vinegar, after the fun part fizzles out, you’re left with a puddle of nothing in particular.”
London blocked Kelly on Twitter in 2017
Kelly’s book came out in January 2017, and in November of that year, Kelly said London had blocked him on Twitter, the social platform now known as X.
“Alllll righty then,” Kelly wrote, sharing a screenshot of the notification that London had blocked him.
His original post has since been deleted, but it was widely circulated at the time.
He later reflected on the incident on “The Chew,” which he co-hosted and moderated from 2011 to 2018.
“It seems juicy, but it really isn’t that juicy,” he said on "The Chew," as per People, referring to finding out London had blocked him. “It was like getting a little slap in the face — I was like, What is that all about? Why, and how, and when?”
“The tea is, there ain’t no tea,” he added. “I literally don’t know if she blocked me yesterday, or a year ago, a month ago … But I’ve got no beef with Stacy at all.”
Kelly reflected on his ongoing rift with London in 2019
“I have no idea what happened. I have a guess as to what happened, but I don’t know for sure,” Kelly said in a 2019 interview with People Now.
He added that he had not meant to hurt London with his comments about her in his 2017 book.
“In the chapter, I was very honest about my relationship with Stacy,” he said. “I didn’t say anything nasty about Stacy, I said that there were times that we didn’t get along. I didn’t go into specifics.”
He also said some publications “pulled out quotes from the book that made it seem like I was talking smack about her, which I was not.”
Kelly added that London had not yet unblocked him on Twitter.
“And guess what?” he said. “I really don’t care.”
He also addressed whether he would ever consider doing a reboot of “What Not to Wear.”
“Would I consider it? I would, but I’m not sure that 'What Not to Wear' could even be done today," he said. "The world just a different place. People dress differently now than they did 10 years ago … There are no rules. You should be wearing what makes you feel good about yourself.”
London teased their TODAY reunion on Instagram
In recent years, London and Kelly have stayed fairly quiet about their previous falling out. But on Sept. 27, 2023, an Instagram video from London sparked some fans’ hopes for a reconciliation.
In the video, London teased her upcoming TODAY appearance and hinted she might be joined by someone special.
“Tomorrow, big news, I am going to be on Hoda and Jenna,” she said. “I adore them like you do, but I’ve never been on their show before. And it’s been so long, gosh, since I’ve been in that building.”
“I wonder who I’m gonna run into?” she added cryptically.
Fans went into a tizzy when Kelly himself commented on her post with an equally cryptic “thinking face” emoji.
They celebrated their reunion with a hilarious promo video for their live tour
Shortly after announcing their upcoming live tour on TODAY, they both posted an Instagram video that poked fun at their feud and reconciliation.
In the video, they both walk down the street, Kelly eating peanut butter from the jar and London munching on a bar of chocolate.
They bump into each other, and at first they seem furious by the abrupt collide.
But after a few moments, they drop their snacks and begin passionately kissing on the sidewalk, as romantic string music plays.
“We’re back,” a message reads at the end of the video.
Fans quickly rejoiced over their reconciliation.
"As a Gen X, THIS IS the reunion I’ve been waiting... NSYNC what?" one person commented on London's post.
"Now we can rebuild," another person wrote.
And Carmindy, the "What Not to Wear" makeup artist who helped every guest on the show find their natural glow, also celebrated their renewed friendship.
"My 2 fav people have reunited for a tour," she wrote in her Instagram story.
This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from TODAY:
