‘The Talk’ star Akbar Gbajabiamila unpacks ‘bittersweet’ ending of CBS show — and teases his next career move

No matter what, he’s still “Talk”-ing.

Football star-turned-TV personality Akbar Gbajabiamila chatted with Page Six’s “Virtual Reali-Tea” co-hosts Evan Real and Danny Murphy at the 2024 Cannes Lions Festival about the ending of “The Talk” — and where he hopes to take his career next.

“It’s bittersweet. For me, you know, it was a dream come true for me growing up watching Oprah Winfrey, Sally Raphael, Donahue, I grew up in the era of talk shows,” Gbajabiamila shared at Stagwell’s Sport Beach activation Tuesday.

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The daytime television show, which has been on the air since 2010, is coming to an end in December after CBS announced its cancellation following 15 seasons.

Gbajabiamila — who joined the panel in 2021, becoming the second full-time male co-host after Jerry O’Connell — is proud to have offered a man’s perspective to a historically female-dominated space.

The father of four — who shares son Elijah; daughter Saheedat; and fraternal twins Nasir and Naomi, with wife Chrystal — noted that he has a “very strong passion” to use his platform by highlighting issues “that men go through.”

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Gbajabiamila, who is also a co-host on NBC’s “American Ninja Warrior” and is at Cannes with both Stagwell and NBCUniversal, said that he was delightfully surprised by his female co-hosts’ receptiveness.

“When I first got there it was like, ‘Wait a second…,’ because it’s a big guy being vulnerable about issues that guys go through,” he recalled.

“[But] after a while, Natalie [Morales], Sheryl [Underwood] and Amanda [Kloots] started receiving it like, ‘Hold on Akbar, I never thought of that perspective. We only saw it from our perspective.’ So we were growing together.”

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One of his favorite topics to discuss on the show? Relationships.

He still cherishes advice that daytime icon Dr. Phil McGraw gave him when he was a guest: “When your wife asks a question, it’s not really a question, it’s a coMMAnd hidden as a question.”

Stay tuned for some more relationship gems from Akbar, who hopes to solidify himself as an expert in the field soon.

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“I’ve been lucky to be around long lasting relationships [and] we have to start having these conversations about relationships,” he shared, observing that many marriages don’t make it.

Gbajabiamila offered a sneak peak of what his advice will look like. His No. 1 rule is pretty simple: stay off social media.

“Social media will literally kill a relationship because it drops all of these hidden expectations and it starts planting the seeds in your head,” he said. “And before you know it, you’re dealing with the outside world’s expectations.”