Kathie Lee Gifford is paying tribute to her friendship with Regis Philbin, weeks after Kelly Ripa said she and co-stars “didn’t really exist.”
Gifford worked with Philbin on Living With Regis and Kathy Lee from the late 1980s through the early 2000s. The 69-year-old media personality left the show with Philbin to work on her singing and acting career. Ripa took over as Gifford in 2001, and turned the show into “Live! With Regis and Kelly.”
Regis retired from the show after working with Ripa for a decade, but in 2017 sparked rumors of a feud after saying Ripa was “very upset” when he left and that the two did not communicate.
Ripa recently set the record straight about her relationship with Philbin while promoting her newly released memoir ‘Live Wire’. In an interview in September, the 52-year-old presenter said the hostility rumors accusing her of abandoning Filipina were not true.
Current-carrying wire:Kelly Ripa says friendship with Regis Philbin didn’t really exist
“It was somehow that false narrative that I let go of someone I was very close to — that we were best friends and I gave up on him,” Ripa told USA TODAY in September. “And none of that was true. We had a very professional working relationship.”
Gifford said her relationship with Philbin was “something very different from that”.
“I was so sorry to see the headlines” from RIBA’s recent interviews, Gifford said NYC Fox 5 Monday. “I’m not going to read the book, I haven’t read it.”
For 15 years, she added, Philbin was “the best partner anyone could ever have, but he was my friend.”
more:5 Reasons Why Kathie Lee Gifford’s New Memoir It’s Never Too Late to Inspire You
Gifford said she saw Philbin two weeks before his death in 2020 and that his wife Joy Philbin said visiting Gifford was the last time she saw him laugh.
She said, “We were absolutely perfect together for TV. We never argued. It wasn’t a non-nice word in 15 years. That was a reality for me.” “In all the years I’ve known him I’ve never seen him so cruel to anyone.”
In her September interview, Ripa said that telling her about the side of her relationship with Philbin gave her a “glimmer of hope” to clear the rumors because she was “too careful” to write about them on LiveWire.
“I didn’t understand this need to always denigrate a woman, and when the discussion is between two people, why not a discussion between two people?” She asked.
“I enjoyed listening to him tell his stories more than anyone else. I loved that part of the show because it wasn’t working at all. But just to put in the responsibility of maintaining a friendship that didn’t really exist (on me)… It’s just a very strange narrative I found I’m in it and I can’t get out of it,” Ripa said.
Contributing: Patrick Ryan
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