The 'Today' host insists she never saw her late former 'Live!' co-star treat anyone unkindly after current 'Live!' co-host spills her 'complicated' relationship with him.
- Oct 12, 2022
AceShowbiz - Kathie Lee Gifford will not read Kelly Ripa's memoir. Co-hosting "Live!" with Regis Philbin in the 1990s, the 69-year-old star has no interest in the new autobiography by Kelly - who later took over from Kathy on the talk show - because of the rumoured revelations it contains about their late mutual co-star.
"I'm not gonna read the book. I haven't read it. I don't even know if it's out yet. I just know what Regis was to me. He was, for 15 years, the best partner a person could ever, ever have professionally, but he was my friend," she said.
The "Today" show host went on to explain that she and Regis - who died of a heart attack at the age of 88 in 2020 - had a special friendship and that she "never" saw him treat anyone unkindly.
Speaking on "Good Day New York", she added, "We were dear friends and after I left the show, for the next 20 years, we became better friends, dearer friends. I saw him two weeks before he died and the minute I found out he had passed, I got in my car and drove to their house. In all the years I knew him, I never saw him unkind to anyone. I never did. If he liked you, he teased you."
Meanwhile, Kelly recently confessed that her relationship with her late co-host was a complicated one but didn't want to feel as if she was "slamming" anyone in "Live Wire, Long-Winded Short Stories". She shared, "There were good and bad days."
"I don't want to feel like I'm slamming anyone or that I'm being disrespectful. But I also want people to know it was not a cakewalk. It took years to earn my place there and earn things that are routinely given to the men I worked with. Including an office and a place to put my computer."
