It’s been 17 years since actress and author Ali Wentworth first met and fell in love with her husband, Good Morning America’s George Stephanopoulos — and she says she was instantly smitten because he would never pull the kind of stunts that felled other anchors like Matt Lauer and Charlie Rose.
“I was so blown away when I met him was because he has so much integrity,” she says. “I went through a bad boy stage before him, and I knew this was a man who wasn’t going to cheat on me, wasn’t going to hit me, or embezzle our money. I’d never be Ruth Madoff.”
Wentworth, who is about to release her third humor book of hilarious essays (Go Ask Ali: Half-Baked Advice and Free Lemonade), says the idea that he would some day come home and tell her he’d met someone else would be a joke to her.
“I’d start hysterically laughing,” she says. “And so would everyone else, because he’s just known as a stand-up dude.”
RELATED VIDEO: How Ali Wentworth and George Stephanopoulos Balance the Duties in Their Marriage
Wentworth, 53, adds that recently, someone stopped the couple on the street and mentioned that Stephanopoulos seemed to be the “last man standing” (without a scandal) in morning TV.
Read more about Ali Wentworth and George Stephanopoulos in this week’s issue of PEOPLE, on stands Friday
“George just pointed at me and shrugged,” Wentworth says. “I was like, ‘What does that mean?’ Either it means ‘Yeah well, I’m on a tight leash with this ball-buster,’ or it means, ‘Well why would I cheat, I’m married to this wonderful woman!'”
She adds, “I’m going to pretend it was the latter.”
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She also notes that when Stephanopoulos, 57, first heard about Matt Lauer’s office button that locked his door from his desk, he thought it sounded great — but not for the same reasons Lauer did.
“He thought it would be great because he could keep everyone out of his way and just do his work,” Wentworth says with a laugh.