Kathie Lee Gifford Says She Hasn't Watched “Live! ”Since Leaving the Show: 'I Was Making Movies!' (Exclusive)
Kathie Lee Gifford Says She Hasn't Watched “Live! ”Since Leaving the Show: 'I Was Making Movies!' (Exclusive)
Charlotte Triggs, Brianne TracyTue, June 30, 2026 at 6:00 PM UTC
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Kathie Lee Gifford at her home outside of Nashville on June 9; Gifford and Regis Philbin in 1988Credit: John Shearer; Everett -
Kathie Lee Gifford says she hasn't watched Live! since leaving the morning program in 2000
Gifford fondly remembers her time with co-host Regis Philbin, calling their time together on Live! “the golden years”
She says Live! and Today, which she co-hosted with Hoda Kotb in the fourth hour, were never her dream jobs
Kathie Lee Gifford hasn't kept up with her morning show successors.
In 2000, the TV icon, 72, left Live! with Regis and Kathie Lee after 15 years of hosting alongside the late Regis Philbin. A year later, Kelly Ripa took over her chair, and Gifford says she's "never watched [the show] once" since.
"I wasn't interested," Gifford tells PEOPLE in this week's cover story, on newsstands Friday. "I was making movies and writing for theater! I wrote about four different musicals."
While it's been decades since she's tuned in to Live!, currently hosted by Ripa, 55, and her husband Mark Consuelos, Gifford looks back fondly on her time on the show and working with Philbin — who died at 88 in 2020 — calling it, "the golden years."
"Regis would tease everybody he liked, and if he wasn't happy, he'd go, 'Quickly and efficiently!' And I would go, 'Aging!'" she says. "Oh, I loved him. He was so much fun. We never had a cross word in 15 years. I miss him every day."
Regis Philbin and Kathie Lee Gifford on 'Live with Regis and Kathie Lee' in 1988Credit: J. Michael Dombroski/Newsday RM via Getty
Gifford says Philbin would often call her up and ask to bring friends over to her house in Connecticut.
"He'd say, 'Kath, so-and-so is in town, and they want to see your house. Can I come over and bring them?'" she recalls. "I'd say, 'Regis, I'm in Italy.' He'd go, 'Oh, that's okay. They don't want to see you. They just want to see your house.' "
Eight years after she left Live!, Gifford was asked to cohost the Today show's fourth hour with Hoda Kotb. During their early days working together, Gifford says they quickly learned to trust each other.
"She was a trained journalist, and I didn't ever want to be," she says. "I didn't want an IFB [earpiece], and I didn't want to have cards. One day we were out on Rockefeller Plaza and all the cards flew away and I go, 'It's a miracle!' And finally, she got rid of the IFB and that's when our show took off."
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Gifford went on to win four Emmys with Kotb, 61, and the Today show team, but by the time she was winning the awards, "I didn't care," she says.
"I forgot how many times Regis and I were nominated for Emmys, and we never won," she says. "I'll never forget the year I left, I was asked to host the daytime Emmys and Regis won best host. I came out, and I go, 'Well, now we know what the problem was. It was me.'"
Kathie Lee Gifford at her home outside of Nashville on June 9Credit: John Shearer
Gifford decided to leave Today in 2019 to pursue other passions, including writing religious nonfiction like her latest book, Nero and Paul, but she makes it clear that she "never said I retired."
"I missed being an artist and writing," she says. "People come up to me all the time and say, 'How could you leave your dream job twice? At the height of all your success you left Regis and then you left Today with Hoda.' I always smile at them, and I go, 'You're just assuming it was my dream job.' The Today show was never my dream job, but I did it well."
To this day, Gifford says she "absolutely" still stays in touch with Kotb.
"She's sunshine in a bottle," she says. "She lasts because she's so real."
Kathie Lee Gifford at her home outside of Nashville on June 9Credit: John Shearer
Through it all, Gifford is proud to say she's "never been a different person on camera."
"I've never separated my spiritual life and my secular life," she says. "It's all the same, and I don't try to be everything to all people. I used to say, 'I'm not everybody's cup of tea, but I'm a lot of people's Sangria or Pinot Grigio or Chardonnay.'"
For more from Kathie Lee Gifford, pick up the new issue of PEOPLE on stands Friday.
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Source: “AOL Entertainment”
