Kathie Lee Gifford talks about how she dealt with an incredibly painful experience in her life – her late husband’s infidelity.
We sit down with ET’s Rachel Smith to talk about her new book. I want to be important: your life is too short and too precious to wastethe 70-year-old former Today Anker announces this after the message from Frank GiffordWhen her affair failed, she struggled with the concept of forgiveness.
Kathie Lee says that while it was difficult to overcome, for her it came down to a few different things, including the love of her two children – Cassidy and Cody – and the idea that it would have an outcome if If you let their resentment fester, it would be omnipresent.
“I could have let the seed germinate, but I don’t want to be that person, that bitter, angry, unhappy, miserable person, because you know what you end up doing? In the end, you make everyone around you just as unhappy.” she shares. “From my early teens, I’ve always felt like I had the choice to be a blessing or a burden every day of my life, and I want one be a blessing.”
To this day, Kathie Lee says she views everything “as a choice,” including love, forgiveness and giving up marriage – which she says she rejected after Frank’s 1997 affair with Suzen Johnson, a former flight attendant.
Kathie Lee says that the months and years after the incident – when Cassidy was just four and Cody was seven – were “very painful” for her, but that thankfully she learned to “practice forgiveness” before marrying Frank .
Before her wedding in 1986, Kathie Lee was married to Christian composer Paul Johnson. The couple married in 1976 but separated in 1982 due to irreconcilable differences, which she detailed in her 2020 memoir. She tells ET that she learned many lessons from her failed marriage, including the importance of absolution in the face of turmoil.
“I was previously married to a man who deeply cheated on me, and I forgave him immediately. You don’t hold on, you don’t wait to forgive… you’re just hurting yourself,” says Kathie Lee.
She adds: “Forgive immediately, because love cannot live where hate lives.”
The previous Live with Regis and Kathie Lee The host says she finds peace these days in the knowledge that it may have been a rocky road back then, but that her story of letting Frank back in has helped so many others over the years. Kathie Lee tells ET that people still come up to her on the street and tell her that they’ve overcome their own marriage difficulties thanks to their own experience.
While there is certainly an element of showing mercy to the person who has done wrong, for them it is soul-feeding to eliminate the negativity and not dwell on past situations. The mother of two says it only creates a “toxic” environment to live in if resentment persists.
“It’s a cancer in your soul and I don’t want that. I don’t want it for myself, I don’t want it for anyone I love. “I want people to be blessed and for all of us to make our own decisions,” shares Kathie Lee.
She adds: “We all make our decisions – him.” [Frank] I made a different one than I did and we all live with them. But I can live with the choices I made if I have truly experienced deep and lasting forgiveness from that person.
In 2020, while promoting her book, It’s never too late: Make the next act of your life the best act of your lifetouched her tells about Frank’s affair Just a few years after her husband’s death. She shared that she “doesn’t want to revisit” the torturous chapter of her story, but believes it’s important to live her life as authentically as possible.
“It’s not a piece of cake. I mean, we fought for a long time after that. “He knew I would never be exactly the same again until I learned the truth about what he had done,” she said.
She added: “I knew that if we had separated then my children would be very, very different people.”
Kathie Lee too spoke to ET in 2000 about her decision to stay in her marriage after Frank’s extramarital affairs, sharing that despite her anger and grief, she found comfort in her Christian ideals and the idea of keeping her family together.
“If I had run away when Frank had his temporary insanity that he was prepared for, let’s face it, our children wouldn’t have their father,” Kathie Lee said.
She added at the time: “A very dear friend told me when I was going through the hardest time that he said, ‘If you can’t forgive your husband, forgive the father of your children.’ Too many families are broken over something that could be healed if they would just stay put and trust God to bring about healing in their lives.”
“People always say to me, ‘Do you have a statement?’ I say, ‘You know what? We are our statement,’” Kathie Lee said at the time.
In her new interview with ET, Kathie Lee also addresses her former co-host, Hoda Kotbrecently I’m pushing for her to be the first ever Golden Bachelorette. Unfortunately, although she had a “great” conversation with producers, she says it would probably never work out for her.
Kathie Lee says she’s “too well known” and finds it weird to entertain bachelors who know her but don’t know her. She is also completely skeptical of the concept – a prerogative that is likely to be exacerbated by this recent separation from Golden Bachelor Gerry Turner and his final decision, Theresa Nist.
“I don’t think so in a few weeks.” [I would] fall madly in love with someone. It would never work that way for me,” she says.
Additionally, she tells ET that she should even consider an opportunity The Golden Bachelorette — which has yet to announce who will play the titular role for its pilot season — a lot would have to change.
“I said, ‘If you want to do a completely different kind of show that’s basically a sitcom, then I’ll make fun of myself, but I’m not going to get in the hot tub with anyone,'” she jokes.
I want to be important: your life is too short and too precious to waste hits shelves April 30th.
RELATED CONTENT: