According to close friend and former co-worker Kathie Lee Gifford, the iconic TV host struggled with mental health issues because of the coronavirus crisis before he died in July.

• Oct 4, 2020

AceShowbiz - Regis Philbin was "depressed" prior to his passing earlier this year (20), according to pal and former co-worker Kathie Lee Gifford.

The veteran "Live! with Regis and Kathie Lee" host tells U.S. TV show "The Talk" that the pandemic and subsequent lockdown affected Regis' mental health in the weeks before his death.

"He had been depressed in the weeks and months earlier, because of (Covid-19)," she says. "Regis couldn't perform anywhere, nobody was out and about. He couldn't be Regis for people, and it broke his heart."

She added that his wife Joy had told her that "one of his dearest friends had just recently died of Covid, so he was pretty much in a depression...Regis just lived to make people happy. He certainly made me happy for the 35 years that we were great friends."

"Later after he passed, two weeks later, Joy told me that that was the last time she heard him laugh, was when he was at my house," Kathie explains.

"So, that was a sweet gift from God to me that he blessed that friendship even at the very end. There was nobody like him ever, and there will never be another like him, ever."

The U.S. TV favourite was 88 when he passed away in July.

Over the last 30 years of his life, Regis Philbin battled various health issues. He underwent an angioplasty in 1993 and triple heart bypass surgery in 2007.