Super tense. Kathie Lee Gifford and Kelly Ripa are feuding over the latter’s book. The current host of Live! With Kelly and Ryan wrote about her former co-host Regis Philbin in her new book Live Wire: Long-Winded Short Stories and Kathie Lee spoke out about it in an interview with Fox 5.
In the morning interview, Kathie Lee expressed her confusion about what Kelly said in her book. “I was very sorry to see the headlines,” the former Live! with Regis and Kathie Lee host said. “You know, you never know what’s true and what’s not true. I went, ‘I hope this isn’t true. I just hope it isn’t.’ ‘Cause what’s the point? I don’t get it. I don’t get it.” “I’m not gonna read the book,” she said during the October 10 interview. “I haven’t read it. I don’t even know if it’s out yet.”
She then went on to explain her friendship with the former Who Wants to be a Millionaire? host when they hosted Live! together from 1988 to 2000. “I just know what Regis was to me,” she recounted” “He was 15 years the best partner I could ever have professionally. But he was my friend. We were dear friends and after I left the show … for the next 20 years we became better friends. Dearer friends. We always just picked up right where we left off. We were Frick and Frack. We were the odd couple. We were absolutely perfect together for television. We never had an argument — not an unkind word in 15 years. So that was my reality.” Regis Philbin died on July 2020 at the age of 88. “Lord, protect Joy and the girls from this,” she added, “In all the years I’ve known him, I never saw him unkind to anyone. I never did. I’m just saying my reality is something completely different from that.”
In her book, Kelly claimed that “seniority,” was never bestowed on her when she hosted the morning show with Regis from 2001 to 2011. “My name had to be smaller than Regis’ name on the Live! title card and branding,” she wrote. When she first started the show, she was informed that Regis was her “boss” and he didn’t want an entourage on set. When Kelly brought on makeup and hair artists, Regis allegedly told an executive producer“Uh-oh … it’s got an entourage.” Kelly wrote, “I felt horrible. He was probably trying to be funny, but at the same time it felt like a pile-on. I understand that probably he didn’t want a co-host, but the network wanted me to be the co-host and I didn’t think I should pass up that opportunity. I don’t think it was fair to him. But it was also not fair to me.”
Despite all of that, Kelly had many great things to say about Regis. She claimed that he was “the world’s best storyteller” and clarified that she loved him. “Off camera and outside of that building, it was a different thing,” she told People. “The handful of times we spent together, I so enjoyed. … He came to a dinner I hosted — one of the favorite nights of my life. I never laughed so hard.”
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