Kathie Lee Gifford Confirms Rumors Following Husband's Death

Nov 14, 2020

Kathie Lee Gifford, the Nashville-based, 67-year-old former TODAY show anchor, confirmed in November of 2019 that she is dating again for the first time in 33 years. Her husband, the late Frank Gifford, died in 2015.

In an interview in 2019 with her ex-colleagues Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager of TODAY with Hoda & Jenna, Kathie Lee Gifford gave an update on her life since she left the show in April of that year. She mentions going out on a couple of dates with a guy who caught her attention by asking her to dance while she was out at a club with her friends.

“I went out with friends to a club to hear my favorite band down there, the Smoking Section. Tim Akers & the Smoking Section,” she shared on the show that she used to host.

But in an interview in late September of 2020, she revealed that she has not fallen in love again: 

"It's because there's nothing going on. There's nothing to talk about," she says of her life to USA Today’s Bryan Alexander via video call. "If there was, I'd shout from the rooftop like Maria in West Side Story. I'd be open to falling in love again. I'd love to. But it hasn't happened."

And although she has not fallen in love again, Kathie holds out hope. "I don't ever want to stop believing in love," she said to Alexander. "Stop believing in love and you've got one foot in the grave already."

Kathie was married to NFL player and sports broadcasting legend Frank Gifford until his death in 2015 at the age of 84. The late Gifford was born on August 16th, 1930. He died just one week shy of his 85th birthday from natural causes. He played for the New York Giants in the 1950s and ’60s, and after his retirement from being an athlete, he proceeded to be an even bigger success as a sports announcer for ESPN's Monday Night Football. He had a decorated career both as a player and as a broadcaster, with one of the highlights being getting inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1977. He married Kathie in 1986.

These days, Kathie dedicates her time to a production company that she has launched, Widow's Peak Pictures, with which she bought a home in 2018. She says that the production company is targeted at people who have lost love. "If we let what we've lost in life define our life, then we've lost,” she says. “You miss out on maybe the greatest moments in your lifetime. Maybe the best is coming tomorrow."

On her relocation to Nashville, Kathie says it was done in the name of getting creative juices flowing for her production company. She told PEOPLE in March 2019:

“Even if you’re just having a dinner party there, invariably people end up at your piano or taking your guitar off the wall, and next thing you know, you’ve written a song and you’re in the studio the next week doing a demo.”

In the same interview with PEOPLE, the reason she left TODAY after 11 years was that the work she wanted to do was not there anymore.

“I am an artist, I’m an actress, I’m a writer, I’m a songwriter, a director now,” Kathie said. “That’s the stuff that feeds my soul, and I know that I’m running out of time to do those things.”

Kathie explained, “If you have a pulse, you have a purpose.” She adds:

“I still have a big old pulse, and I'm in excellent health. I'm a senior citizen. I can stand in line and get a discount to see a movie, but I'd much rather be making movies for other senior citizens to come.”

Kathie is a devout Christian. She regularly posts Bible-related tweets and has said that her faith comforted her when she found her late husband dead — she “didn’t panic at all.”

“I had what the Bible calls ‘the peace that passes understanding’ from the moment I found my husband on the floor that Sunday morning, August 9, 2015. It was Hoda’s birthday and it was a beautiful Sunday morning, and I found my husband [with his mouth agape]. I knew he saw Jesus and Jesus took his breath away. He was at peace. He was in a better place,” Kathie said.

Kathie shared that she experienced “pervasive loneliness” as she lost her mom and her husband, and she thus became an empty nester all within a short period of time.

She goes on to share about her family’s “sunset alert” tradition, saying:

“We always lived in places where the sunsets were spectacular. And no matter what, we would have to drop whatever we were doing and go and honor the sunset because God made it. And for me, the hardest part of my day became sunsets when it would just be me and I’d go, ‘sunset alert’ by myself,” she says, beginning to tear up. “It made me realize, I don’t want to stop being joyful. I’m going to go share my sunset somewhere.”

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