Kathie Lee Gifford: Kimmel’s Collapse, Regis’ Legacy & Why Faith & Kindness Still Matter

Kathie Lee Gifford joins Raymond Arroyo for a candid, inspiring episode of Arroyo Grande. A four-time Emmy winner, she reflects on her decades with Regis Philbin and Hoda Kotb, her surprising role in helping Jimmy Kimmel launch his late-night show, and why she believes today’s entertainment culture has lost its kindness and authenticity.

Kathie Lee opens up about the joys and struggles that shaped her life—from her groundbreaking partnership with Regis to the painful scandals surrounding Frank Gifford, and ultimately his passing. She shares how faith gave her the strength to endure, why she calls cancel culture a “cancer,” and how grace, forgiveness, and miracles have guided her through heartbreak and healing.

Warm, funny, and unflinchingly honest, Kathie Lee reminds us why she remains one of America’s most beloved voices. Whether you remember her mornings with Regis or her years alongside Hoda, you’ll be inspired by her humor, resilience, and unwavering trust in God’s plan.

👉 Don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe for more conversations on culture, faith, and life lived fully.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
She's got four Emmys in reshape morning television. But did
you know Kathy Lee Gifford once sat at Jimmy Kimmel's
side for the first week of his late night show.
So what went wrong? She tells me on this Arroyo Grande.
Come on, thanks, I'm Raymond Arroyo. Welcome to Arroyo Grande.

(00:27):
Go subscribe to the show right now. Turn those notifications on.
I don't want you missing anything, and if you'd like
to support our work, Raymondarroyo dot Com is the website.
She's a four time Emmy Award winner. For twenty five
years she dominated morning TV with her pals Regis Philbin
and later Hota Codby. She's a playwriter, producer, singer, songwriter,

(00:49):
and actress. I joined her at her home in Nashville
and we got into everything from how she and Regis
Philbin changed TV to what really happened with Jimmy Kimmel
And did you know Kathy Lee once co hosted his
late night show when it launched, you were part of
not only great morning TV, you were on all those

(01:10):
great late night shows as well. It was a very
different vibe.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
It was dynamic, it was exciting, they got all full
of themselves. And I remember I liked Jimmy Kimmel as
a person. When Jimmy got his late night show, he
called me and he goes, Kathy, I don't know what
I'm doing. Will you come in the first week and
help me? WI your co host with me the first week?

Speaker 1 (01:32):
And I said sure.

Speaker 2 (01:33):
I got off from from and I went out to
LA and I was with Jimmy that that very first
week of him trying to, you know, find finally, you
know what. There we all learned to swim in new waters.
You know, you got to learn to to do that.
Every show is different, and especially if you go from

(01:55):
a huge leap from you know what.

Speaker 3 (01:57):
He did that man show kind of thing, and then
he went to that.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
And I and I knew it helped him, and he
was he was grateful all and then all of a sudden,
I see it clips or something of this person that
I used to enjoy being with and enjoyed making television with,
and I go, I don't even recognize him anymore. I
don't recognize him. I love Jimmy Fallon, What a talented

(02:20):
guy he is. They all got scared of being canceled.
I never cared. They tried to cancel me my entire career.
I said, fine, I don't work for you. I work
for the I work for a higher power.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
And you're true to that gift.

Speaker 3 (02:40):
I'm true to the Yeah, you go ahead and cancel me.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
I don't care.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
I will find something else to do where I can
be me. But you're not going to that whole. God
doesn't cancel people. God embraces people. Jesus never canceled anybody.

Speaker 4 (02:56):
He walked with them, he talked with him, He eat
with them and love them, and it showed them the
way to a life of joy and a life.

Speaker 2 (03:07):
Of of of service and a life of purpose, the
exact opposite of cancer. You see, cancel all. It's cancer culture.
Yeah I cancer came out. Yeah, I didn't mean it
that way, but I and I wish everybody well. But
don't you mess with my authenticity that comes straight from
the Lord God.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
You know what I love. I went back and watched
you in Regis this week. Those openings they were never
you know what struck me most. They were never mean. Never.
You didn't trash somebody and say look at Madonna, what
a tramp.

Speaker 3 (03:38):
You never did never, and we never did it to.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
We tease each other, teach each other and talk about
your own foibles and yes, but never meeting someone on
the street. But it was never cruel.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
It was never mean, right, And that's what happens when
you lose That's what's happened. When you lose God in
your life. You get mean because you get angry. You
get angry.

Speaker 1 (04:00):
You said something recently that, particularly with what's happening in
the world, what's happening in the country, just drew my
attention again. And you said this was during an interview.
When I was growing up, what was rare was cruelty.
Now what's rare our stories about kindness? Kindness? What has shifted?
And how do we get it back?

Speaker 2 (04:20):
Well, I think the minute we just leave God out
of any equation, it's at our own risk and peril.
God doesn't want to hurt us.

Speaker 1 (04:29):
But when we move.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
Away from him and we leave him out of our
decision making process, when we leave him out.

Speaker 1 (04:36):
Of our day by day.

Speaker 3 (04:39):
Behavior, then we pay a price for it. He gave
us there.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
I don't even like to call him the Ten commandments.

Speaker 2 (04:46):
He gave us their blessings. They're really blessings. The ten
blessings if you do this. This is why I will
bless you if you do this. And even the you know,
love your your mother and your father, that you may
live long in the land. And I mean they're promises
from God, and we have we have degraded the value

(05:07):
of it.

Speaker 1 (05:08):
In our culture.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
And I don't think that that we are a Christian
country anymore. No, we were founded on Judeo Christian principles.
But one of the greatest aspects of our country is
that we allow other people to live with us too.
That's what Jesus did. Jesus embraced, Jesus embraced now and

(05:31):
that's what Charlie Kirk was doing, trying to embrace people.
They say, please come, come join us, dine with me,
dine with me, break bread with me, you know. And
then because our common ground then is our sacred ground.
And there's so many people in this world that really
do think very much like we do.

Speaker 1 (05:52):
But do you think we've do you think we've reached
a tipping point where.

Speaker 5 (05:56):
Cruelty, cruel spacious, viciousness, meanness that that's so poisoned not
only the conversation we're hearing, we're seeing every.

Speaker 1 (06:07):
Day of our lives. But the behavior around us.

Speaker 3 (06:10):
No, I know, But that's because they hate God. They
hate God.

Speaker 2 (06:16):
How do you hate something you don't even believe? That's
interesting to me. Why do you hate them if you
don't think he even exists. People are desperate for love,
they're desperate for tenderness, they're desperate for kindness, and they
lash out because they're so broken.

Speaker 3 (06:35):
They do. They lash out out of their brokenness.

Speaker 2 (06:39):
And Jesus understood that so well, so well, And the
only time he ever got angry, and all the scripture
that we know is when he got the whip and
he knocked over not the money changers, knocked over the
table which represented where his people, God's people ate with

(07:01):
their creator. And he said, no, you have made my
father's house a prayer, a house you know of thieves
of money. And they got angry at that. That's when
the Pharisees and the Sadducees turned against Jesus because they went,
he's going to He's changing everything. The people are following him.
The people are not going to tithe. The people are

(07:23):
not going to follow us. The people are not going
to Jesus said, God doesn't want your money.

Speaker 3 (07:28):
He wants you to love him. He wants you to
know him.

Speaker 1 (07:31):
You said something about cancel culture the other day, you said,
it's a cancer. A cancer. It is this idea of
negating people. That you might disagree with this, but this
has become really and this is not confined to any
one ideology or one side of the political ledger. It's
I now see it everywhere. It's really destructive. Yeah, it's

(07:56):
to the soul of a country, to the soul of
the people in the country.

Speaker 2 (07:59):
That's exactly right. Yeah, I totally believe that. And I
don't want any part of it. I don't want to
be a part of it.

Speaker 1 (08:06):
But how do you stay and this is the real
key question, how do you hold people to account but
do so with grace and mercy, which seems to be
dead in our culture. Grace and mercy has been driven
out of the culture. But it's grit large.

Speaker 2 (08:19):
It seems like it, but it hasn't been. You know,
I saw on the news yesterday people all over the
world saying things on their body or on their whatever
said I am I am Charlie Kirk. I am Charlie Kirk.
And if this young man, truly beautiful young man I
never met him. I wish I had. I just never

(08:41):
would never cross paths. But I was always impressed by him.
When I would see him on television, I would think,
what a thoughtful, thoughtful man. I dropped out of college too,
because I wasn't learning anything that was going to that
I wanted, that was going to get me where. I
knew what I wanted to do when I was a
child as well. He knew he had the calling of
God on his life even then. So, I mean, it

(09:05):
exists all over the world, but it doesn't get the
kind of attention that the that the screaming crowds get.
And that's you know, that's one of the reasons I
moved out in New York. I couldn't take that culture
any longer, you know, I couldn't take the culture of chaos.
I said, I'm gonna I've been working down here on
a movie that I did write, co writing music for

(09:28):
the soundtrack, and I just thought, why am I.

Speaker 1 (09:30):
So happy here? It's because there's a.

Speaker 2 (09:33):
Culture of kindness here. That doesn't mean everybody here is kind,
but the culture is based on decency. It's civility, generosity
and hospitality, hospitalities and huge hospitality is huge in Middle
Eastern religions. It is the Muslims, the everybody here, please

(09:56):
come sit eat.

Speaker 3 (09:57):
We don't have that anymore. It's the South.

Speaker 1 (10:00):
It's here, it's still here. And certainly in Nashville, the
dogma lives loudly, and the people there does hospitality and
kindness and welcome. I want to talk about you mentioned
a moment ago that you felt that calling on your
life at a young age. What was that calling.

Speaker 2 (10:17):
To use whatever gift that I've been given from God
for his glory? Not mine knew it from I was.
I came out of my mother's womb with a pratfall
and a and a.

Speaker 1 (10:33):
And a song, with a song in my heart. I
adore here. Okay, we don't want to pay the royalties,
so we're going to No, No, we got to stop there. No.

Speaker 3 (10:43):
I knew. I knew I was supposed to. I'm I'm
a storyteller.

Speaker 2 (10:46):
I was supposed to tell the world in story, in
music and everything else that that God loves them.

Speaker 1 (10:53):
And what did your parents think when you said this
is what I'm going to do. You went out to
l A, Right.

Speaker 2 (10:57):
I went out to l A first, Yeah, and and
started getting in line with everybody else to get jobs.

Speaker 1 (11:04):
And it was hard, It was.

Speaker 3 (11:06):
Really really hard.

Speaker 2 (11:07):
But Billy Graham years ago, when I was in my
early twenties, had a huge impact on my life when
he said to me, and I'd come to know the
Lord through his movie The Restless Ones, my mother and
my daughter, my sister, excuse me, he had come to
know the Lord through watching him on television, and my
other my whole family basically came to know Faith through

(11:32):
from Billy. And so I was just when I got
a chance to meet him when I was in my
early twenties. He took me aside and said, Hathy, I
know this about you, and the wade talk was so
sweet and gentle, and he said, you're going to have
a huge career in the entertainment industry. You're going to
have a huge, huge future in the entertainment in that world,

(11:53):
and you're going to get a lot of flack for it.
You are, you're going to get. But here if you
want any advice for me, I said, are you kidding?
Advice from Billy Graham?

Speaker 3 (12:03):
Please? Please?

Speaker 2 (12:05):
He said, just don't wake the one mistake I made,
which is I don't know he made any mistakes. He said,
don't get involved with politics. You lose half your audience
the minute.

Speaker 1 (12:17):
You choose a side.

Speaker 2 (12:19):
Choose just he said, don't do it, Kathy. I was
sorry when I did it. I was told to preach
the gospel. You have to teach what your understanding of
the gospel is, that God loves you just the way
you are. It was very similar to remember the song
just as I am without one, Please come to me

(12:44):
just as you are. And I said, he said, just
fight it there. You will be tempted, You will be tempted,
and people will try to buy you off, and people
will try to get you in lined, and don't do it.
Stay true to the calling of God on your life.
And I think that's what Charlie was doing too.

Speaker 1 (13:04):
Something I did not know about you until this week
when I did my research. You were he hall honey.

Speaker 3 (13:09):
No, I did name that tune first, then I did
he haw honeys.

Speaker 1 (13:14):
The next year tell people about that. What was that?
What was that? Like me? It was a it was
a he Has spin off.

Speaker 3 (13:19):
It was a hit spin off. Yes, I was a
he houspin off.

Speaker 2 (13:23):
And I did name that tune and everybody knew me
as the la la lady, and it changed my whole life.
And I started opening for Bob Hope, Bill Cosby everybody all.
I was the go to girl if you wanted to
get people happy at your show, and you know, and
all of that before you go on, because I didn't

(13:43):
have to sell the tickets. The headliners had to sell
the tickets, and I liked not being a headliner. I
never needed to. I never wanted to be a star
ever ever. I just wanted to. My dad said, find
something you love to do and then figure out a
way to get paid for it.

Speaker 3 (13:59):
That's where you'll be happy, Kathy.

Speaker 2 (14:01):
He was right, but I never dreamed that i'd have
the success that I ultimately got.

Speaker 1 (14:07):
So yeah.

Speaker 2 (14:08):
So the year later, I was three young ladies like
we were going to be the Charlie's Angels of country music.
And the producers it was a producers of he Hall
were doing a spin off and they wanted us to
be like the trio of girls that go down to
to make it in country music. Well, the other two

(14:28):
ladies were lovely, but they were let go and they
just there.

Speaker 1 (14:32):
I was standing, They're going, what are you gonna do
with me?

Speaker 2 (14:35):
No, they said, we will change the show up and
we'll get Misty Rowe, we'll get Kenny, Gayla Sartaine, we'll
get all these other characters that are already established, and
we'll call it he ha honeys differently though, but it'll
be a family instead of three girls trying to get Yeah.
And I made friends with Dolly. Then I made friends

(14:56):
with the Gatlin brothers. I made friends with Barbara Mandrel.

Speaker 1 (15:00):
Who else? I mean when I read that Rogers, this
was the Nashville connection before there was a Nashville connection,
That's right.

Speaker 2 (15:06):
I came and spent a year here doing the you
shot it here, you shot it here?

Speaker 1 (15:10):
Oh yeah, I didn't know that. I figured you shot it.

Speaker 2 (15:13):
In l A Productions. They were Canadian that guys that
produced on he Hall.

Speaker 1 (15:19):
So that was kind of a Harvarder of things to come.
God who knew introducing you to the concept. I gained
twenty pounds here with the food. Oh my gosh, it's
like biscuits are good.

Speaker 2 (15:31):
I was everything's gravy, you know, everything's gravy. And I've
never been a big eater.

Speaker 1 (15:36):
But that year you learned, you learned. Tell me, what
how did you meet Regis? How did this happen. He
was already doing the show in La, right, oh, a
morning show for years, for years, and then they move
him to New York.

Speaker 3 (15:51):
Well, he got an offer.

Speaker 2 (15:53):
I think, I don't remember who he got the offer from,
but you know, no one reaches. It was about money,
and he was read he to go the next step.
They went to do a national show and it didn't go.
It didn't go well.

Speaker 1 (16:08):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (16:08):
I think it was a wrong chemistry between the two
of them.

Speaker 2 (16:11):
And Regis was used to being, you know, king of
the king, and then he was king of them one
he was, he was. He was a king in La
And now when I lived there, I watched him every morning,
everybody did, and I just.

Speaker 3 (16:23):
Thought he was just adorable.

Speaker 2 (16:26):
He was so frickin funny, and every time I turned
on the TV he was doing something stupid or something
outrageous or something. I thought, he this man is so
much like I am. He just trusts his his instincts,
his gut. He trust he trusts his gut as a performer,
and he wasn't a performer. I already was long sense

(16:47):
of performer. But he adored people like Dean Martin, adored
Perry Como, adored.

Speaker 3 (16:53):
He loved talent, he loved he loved talent, he loved music.

Speaker 2 (16:56):
He was you know, Frank used to say to me.
He said, Regis isn't a bad singer. He just can't
finish a song.

Speaker 1 (17:07):
He can't quite get there.

Speaker 3 (17:09):
And Frank was one to talk. Frank was a terrible singer.

Speaker 2 (17:14):
Tried whistle whistled perfectly, and whistled perfectly, but he could
never stay in. Oh, it's just five funny, funny stories
about the two of them. Just amazing. But anyway, Yeah,
I when I moved to New York for one year
to four Good Morning America one year, and I didn't

(17:37):
want it. I said, I'm not a journalist. Why are
they calling me? They said, we don't want a journalist.
We want somebody that's great with an audience, great and
that's great with people, that just just is, you know,
a real person and will teach you the things you
need because you're smart.

Speaker 3 (17:51):
You'll learn them. And so I moved. I said, I'll
give you one year.

Speaker 2 (17:55):
I was going through a divorce at the time, and
I was ready to say I'm going to get out
of town while this thing we're out, and then I'll
come back and continue the work that I've been doing
in LA and.

Speaker 1 (18:08):
You didn't like the Good Morning America gig.

Speaker 2 (18:10):
No No, I like the people there, you know. I
always find good people wherever I go. But it wasn't enough.

Speaker 1 (18:17):
It wasn't a good fit. It just wasn't even know
why it was.

Speaker 3 (18:20):
No, it was under entertainment back then. But I mean
I started doing commercial.

Speaker 2 (18:26):
The way I met Frank was because I was doing
a dog food commercial for Alpo at four o'clock in
the morning, got my hair and makeup, and I'm walking
down the h.

Speaker 3 (18:37):
And I see it.

Speaker 2 (18:39):
An amazing set of buns leaning over it, putting in
contact lenses. Now, I had just had something called radio keratotomy,
which was a precursor to LASH, and that's when they
did it with a razor blade. Oh yeah, sorry anyway,
but it did work for me, and I had perfect,

(18:59):
perfect and I said, boy, have I got an operation
for you?

Speaker 3 (19:03):
And this he didn't turn or anything.

Speaker 1 (19:06):
Yeah, with a fool on either end.

Speaker 2 (19:09):
I went, oh charming, Yeah, okay, well I can see
and apparently you can't.

Speaker 1 (19:15):
So there's something one of us is right. That's how
you met.

Speaker 2 (19:19):
That was Frank, and I should have recognized his voice
because my daddy and my brother and everybody, we always
they always watched Monday night football. That's what Frank was
really best known for at that time. But so anyway,
that's how I met Frank.

Speaker 1 (19:32):
And I was going to.

Speaker 3 (19:33):
Stay for a year and that was it.

Speaker 2 (19:36):
And I just stayed, I mean, and then I fell
in love with Frank, and then we were friends for four.

Speaker 3 (19:44):
Years before we ever fell in love. Four years.

Speaker 2 (19:46):
He told me he was in love with me, but
he said, she'll never love me. I'm too old for her,
twenty three years to the day older. Because yeah, and
I never even considered it because you know, I was
getting a divorced. It was a bad, bad situation in
my life at that time. There was a man I
was in a loveless, sexless marriage from the moment I

(20:08):
married the man, and it was horrible for almost seven years.
And I wasn't the one that was going to leave
because in my family, he didn't. You didn't leave a marriage,
you know. And but he he, you know, brought charges
against me, and I said, the kindest thing he.

Speaker 3 (20:23):
Ever did was divorce me. Gave me the.

Speaker 2 (20:25):
Freedom to find a real love in my life, which
which which was Frank.

Speaker 1 (20:30):
Yeah, and then where did Regis enter the picture?

Speaker 2 (20:34):
Oh, Regius, my stinky reaches. He wasn't stinky, but myself.
He was a stink pot.

Speaker 1 (20:39):
He you know, he knew how to he knew how
to stir up the bonnet. Turn it up, baby.

Speaker 2 (20:46):
One day I was walking up West End Avenue West
or whatever course and on the West side in New York.
And it was really weird because usually there's a lot
of people. I see him walking towards me. He could
see me walking, and we just said hi, and we
said a quick hello. He sort of recognized me, and
I definitely recognized him. And right after that, I heard

(21:09):
that the Anne Abernathy, the woman who was his co
host at the time, was leaving to marry some guy
and live in Virginia. And I called my agents and
I said, I want I want to be seen for
that job. They go, why, it's at the local show.
It's called the Morning Show. And I said, because he's

(21:31):
so funny, he's so brilliant, he's he doesn't have to
use cards.

Speaker 3 (21:35):
He's liked me. We would have so much fun together.

Speaker 2 (21:38):
And all I was doing was reading a teleprompter at
Good Morning America, and I don't.

Speaker 1 (21:43):
That's not me. I know.

Speaker 2 (21:45):
I just felt, you know, I don't want to do this,
and I appreciated the they taught me a lot.

Speaker 3 (21:50):
I've never done stand ups and all, and you learned
to do all that.

Speaker 2 (21:53):
The television, yeah, well I knew the timing of television
a lot. I've been on TV a lot, but but
not on that thing, down to the down to the
you know.

Speaker 1 (22:02):
The minute down to live television a lot of it.

Speaker 2 (22:05):
And also I didn't I didn't want to say other
people's words.

Speaker 3 (22:09):
They didn't sound like me in my mouth, you know.
And so.

Speaker 2 (22:14):
Anyway, I called my agent and he said, Katy, it's
a local show. I said, I'm aware of that, but
he's having fun. I'm not having any fun. So well,
they're they're training you to take John London's place. They
want you to be the next co host of Good
Morning America. I said, I don't want it. Wow, I
didn't want it.

Speaker 3 (22:31):
I said, this is not me.

Speaker 1 (22:34):
It was a bad fit.

Speaker 2 (22:35):
So they said, okay, you got me an audition, and
after I think two or two times with Regis, they said,
there's nobody we're meant for this. And so that's that started.
Fifteen years with him, and we changed the entire landscape
of daytime television.

Speaker 1 (22:52):
We didn't even know we were doing it. Tell me
what the secret was. First of all, tell me a
better word, f you and yes, the only F word
you can say on this show.

Speaker 3 (23:02):
I can say fart all right, that's four letters.

Speaker 1 (23:04):
All right, that's right, which is better than the alternative.
But what was it about. I mean, I'm a big
believer in chemistry. It's either there or will never be there.

Speaker 3 (23:18):
You can't. You can't mix it up in a Petrio desk.

Speaker 1 (23:21):
You just can't.

Speaker 3 (23:22):
It doesn't work that way.

Speaker 1 (23:23):
They try. Every day. You see people who hate each
other on TV. You can feel it. I can feel it.
I can feel it.

Speaker 2 (23:27):
Ah, yeah, no, it's it doesn't work. It doesn't work.

Speaker 1 (23:31):
But what worked between you and regis that first time.

Speaker 3 (23:34):
Well there's two things.

Speaker 5 (23:35):
Was.

Speaker 2 (23:36):
First of all, neither one of us thought of ourselves
as as journalists. We weren't trying to be you know,
impressed people with our journalistic and whatever. No, all that
I would call it pseudo intellectualism. You know, we didn't
do that. We just had fun. We found the silly
in each other. We also respected each other so much.

(24:00):
I was a had been a performer since I was
ten years old, getting paid for it. He had been
on radio first, and he just he was a performer.

Speaker 1 (24:08):
And I and he was with Joey Bishop, that Joey Bishop.

Speaker 2 (24:11):
Stripes, I had two and we were so it was
it was a combination of and we both felt like
finally we got our foil.

Speaker 3 (24:20):
We got the guy. This is a guy I want
to play ping pong with, you know.

Speaker 1 (24:25):
And that's what happened. And you'd go out, he'd come,
I know, with a pile of something from the New
York Post usually yeah, he'd have the newspapers in his hand, right.
You all would basically riff on what was happening. Yep.

Speaker 3 (24:38):
No script never, never, we didn't have any any writers.

Speaker 1 (24:42):
No teleprompter at all to get in and out of
a segment. But that's it.

Speaker 2 (24:46):
Yes, no teleprompter at all. And we would we'd say,
uh yeah, twenty three minutes out of the first half hour.
We never went to commercial until twenty three minutes were up.

Speaker 1 (24:57):
And and you wouldn't prep at all. He wouldn't be
in the dressing rooms. Hey we're going to hit.

Speaker 3 (25:00):
We never saw each other before.

Speaker 1 (25:02):
Oh you didn't want to see him on purpose.

Speaker 2 (25:06):
We got hair and makeup separately and didn't even say
good morning until we walked out. Now I can remember
that the music and that's what i'd been getting our
chair and we.

Speaker 1 (25:21):
To keep it fresh. It was real.

Speaker 2 (25:23):
It was authentic, but totally authentic. That's the key to
for me. It's been the key to everything.

Speaker 1 (25:30):
Do you feel that's gone today?

Speaker 3 (25:32):
No, I'm still around.

Speaker 1 (25:34):
I'm not talking about you. I mean when you look
at other people that are now filling the airwaves, so
you feel a bit of that authenticity has been leached away.

Speaker 2 (25:42):
I think in the news world, death Wanning, that's gone
and they and they deserve it, and they and they
and nobody watches and their ratings are totally gone because
they've deserved.

Speaker 1 (25:52):
They deserve the.

Speaker 2 (25:53):
Fact that nobody respects him anymore. They have they had
a privilege of being journalists, privilege in the news, and
that everybody got political, everybody got you into all of that,
and I, because thank you, Billy.

Speaker 3 (26:07):
Graham, never did.

Speaker 2 (26:08):
And I think there are a lot of people, a
lot of very very real people in podcasting now and
a lot of but more and more people want what
other people have. But don't want to work for it.
We live in an entitled society where somebody wants.

Speaker 1 (26:27):
What you've got.

Speaker 2 (26:29):
They want what I've got, and they've never put in
the work. I don't respect that.

Speaker 1 (26:32):
No, regis philb and you what was the best and
the worst part of doing that show for all those years?

Speaker 3 (26:40):
Gosh, there was no worst part, really.

Speaker 1 (26:43):
No.

Speaker 2 (26:44):
I had to get up very very early because I
commuted it for each lived across the street, of course,
in a penthouse, and they'd walk across the street and drive
people crazy all the way. And I came in all
the way from Greenwich, Connecticut because I wanted to raise
my kids there. Didn't want him to raise I didn't
want to raise him.

Speaker 1 (27:02):
In the wise room.

Speaker 2 (27:03):
Yeah, and I think so. In fact, I know so nothing.
You know, a lot of great kids come out of
New York.

Speaker 1 (27:09):
But it wasn't.

Speaker 2 (27:10):
I was never a New Yorker. I was grateful for
New York. Frank was grateful for New York. I mean,
both of us had amazing careers because New York was
good to us, right, But no, I knew how I
wanted to raise my babies. And uh so the hard part,
the only hard part was the commute, you know, and.

Speaker 3 (27:29):
The best part just being with him every day.

Speaker 2 (27:33):
I would I'd wake up every morning and be excited.
I'm gonna see reach, We're gonna have fun. What are
we going to talk about today?

Speaker 1 (27:41):
We don't know.

Speaker 3 (27:42):
We don't know, and it's gonna be fun to find
out he did. And it would just and we never
ever planned it.

Speaker 1 (27:50):
In many ways, I think you all are liked the
first podcasters, huh, because you're talking a lot of what
people are doing now is what you all coined, which
was free flowing conversation between two friends about topics of
the day and things.

Speaker 3 (28:04):
People were interested whatever, but.

Speaker 1 (28:06):
They entered into that relationship. And now that those relationships
they don't have them in real life, they'd become more precious.

Speaker 3 (28:13):
Well, we just loved each other.

Speaker 1 (28:15):
You saw that we loved each other.

Speaker 2 (28:17):
We made each other how with laughter, and it was
authentic laughter, you know, we didn't need We.

Speaker 3 (28:23):
Never had a laugh track with our audience.

Speaker 1 (28:26):
It was live.

Speaker 3 (28:26):
It was live and a live it really was.

Speaker 2 (28:31):
And I used to say when I was walking out
and going to meet him on the stage, I said,
I'd like learn how long till I make him laugh?

Speaker 1 (28:39):
Five seconds?

Speaker 3 (28:40):
Today?

Speaker 2 (28:40):
Five seconds, I'm going to get a laugh at them
a minute, and that would be my goal to just
get him laugh in them. And it always worked.

Speaker 1 (28:48):
Wow. And he was a bit of a curmudrant. I
mean yeah, he was like me, like he liked to complain.
That was part of his that's yeah. And I loved it.

Speaker 3 (28:57):
I loved him and I was unshine right now, I'm
a curmudgeon.

Speaker 1 (29:02):
So you taught you well, he taught you well. Well,
I got old well that that happened. It happened to
the best of it. Did anyone at ABC ever tell
your agents or managers ever say, you know, Kathy, we
love you. It's working well. Pulled back on the faith thing,
don't mention the god thing. Never did that.

Speaker 2 (29:21):
I would have walked in five seconds. I would have said,
well then then you don't want me, uh huh. If
you don't want he comes with me. I'm with that guy.
And the ratings were just yeah, no, no, the ratings.

Speaker 1 (29:34):
And they would say, can she say that? Do we
want it saying that?

Speaker 2 (29:39):
And they didn't believe it or any but but the
audience went. Our audience. We used to get like eights,
which nobody would have said in the Nielsen ratings huge, huge, huge,
and now people are lucky to get we're blessed to
get what a one?

Speaker 1 (29:55):
Yeah that bad bad. Realize you realized cable television is
now beating all the broadcasts except for football games.

Speaker 2 (30:03):
I remember when cables just started and everybody was laughing
at it, and Frank.

Speaker 1 (30:08):
Said, it's going to be huge. Yeah, it's going to
be huge. And now streaming, now streaming is recruiting.

Speaker 3 (30:14):
On that something else will take over that.

Speaker 1 (30:16):
Yes, it's it's all sick. I mean this has become
streaming is basically becoming cable. But you get to decide
when you watch the show. I like that.

Speaker 3 (30:24):
I like freedom.

Speaker 1 (30:25):
I think everybody likes it. Yeah, which is it's the future?
Tell me about Hoda. You then you then go back
to daytime television with Hoda after eight years away. I know,
why would you do that? First?

Speaker 3 (30:38):
Didn't want to?

Speaker 1 (30:40):
I know you kind of didn't. You were kind of
committal at the beginning.

Speaker 2 (30:44):
I thought I'd done the best daytime television I could
do best fifteen years of television.

Speaker 1 (30:50):
That was in me was Reaches.

Speaker 3 (30:53):
Yeah, the master of it all, I mean, the king
of it.

Speaker 1 (30:56):
He was just he was didn't worry about the chemistry.

Speaker 3 (31:00):
I didn't know her.

Speaker 2 (31:02):
See I knew Regis for years watching him in Los Angeles,
so I mean I could I knew right away we.

Speaker 1 (31:08):
Won't have some fun. We're going to have a whole
lot of fun. Did you accommodate your character if you will?
Your personality to him? Knowing who he was, and thought,
I'll bring up this part of me to kind of
balance him.

Speaker 3 (31:21):
No, all I did is show up, not.

Speaker 1 (31:24):
A conscious never I'm going to play this part of me.

Speaker 3 (31:27):
I'm just going to react to him.

Speaker 2 (31:30):
I'm just going to be honest, and I'm going to
bring something maybe fun that happened to me.

Speaker 1 (31:35):
I'll bring something to the table. And what was the
approach with Hoda? What did you think with Hoda?

Speaker 3 (31:39):
I had to get to know her. Bill Jim Bell.

Speaker 2 (31:43):
Jim Bell was the executive producer of The Today Show
at the time, and he came over to my house
and tried to talk me into it, and I said, Jim,
I've done the best television I can do. I'm writing
for Broadway now, you know. I'm just I'm really moving
on to those final dreams that are still in the
little girl that fell out of them.

Speaker 1 (32:01):
With the press fall out of her mother's womb.

Speaker 2 (32:04):
I still have them, and you can't in daytime television
pursue those kinds of dreams. Movies take a long time.
Broadway takes out Broadway decades, decades. Yeah, thirteen years. I
tried to bring my Broadway show and then it closed
in three weeks because of Hurricane Sandy and some brutal
reviews because people didn't want Jesus on Broadway or a

(32:26):
woman who loved him, even.

Speaker 1 (32:27):
Though a complex woman. It's a great show.

Speaker 3 (32:30):
I thought, I know you did, thank you. And that
was thirteen years.

Speaker 2 (32:34):
I wrote that, rewrote it one hundred times and three
out of town tryouts, and it's just a lot of money.
And I still have this of my professional life. It's
the biggest heartbreak of my professional life. Really was that, Yeah,
my Broadway show. Whatever reason, God had.

Speaker 1 (32:53):
It, and he wanted your back in television. I didn't.

Speaker 2 (32:58):
I guess I don't know what he wanted. I know
I didn't want. I didn't want to go back to television.
And it was Frank who talked me into it. He said,
she's fantastic and she was just a very very good
journalist back then when I met her.

Speaker 1 (33:12):
I knew her from New Orleans. Yes, I knew it
because she was a local New Orleans.

Speaker 2 (33:18):
Yes, beloved, Yes, I know that. But I didn't know
any of that stuff. And I didn't watch television after
I left it at all.

Speaker 3 (33:24):
I'd have it on. I'd have a cable on for news.

Speaker 2 (33:27):
I'm a news junkie back when you could trust the
news you were getting, you know, not so sure?

Speaker 1 (33:33):
Not Yeah, So he.

Speaker 2 (33:34):
Said, he said, well, you at least have lunch with Kate,
with her, and I said, yeah, of course, I mean yeah.
So we went to lunch at the uh where was
it? It was right across the street at the Rainbow Room,
and by one o'clock lunch, and by about six they
were trying to get us out for the dinner crowd.
And she we went to the ladies room afterwards, and

(33:56):
I said, you know, holda, I don't. I don't want
to come back to television, and I really don't. And
but you and I could have a fun show. I
know that if you just the person that I just
had lunch with, if she would show up and be
with me on air, we could have a really fun show.

Speaker 3 (34:14):
I'm not sure we could be a hit at ten
in the morning.

Speaker 1 (34:17):
Yeah, you know, you.

Speaker 2 (34:18):
Lose so many viewers At that point, I said, but
but I just really want you to know how special
you are, and you'll be, You'll be, You're gonna have
a great career. You're gonna have an amazing career. But
I'm not I'm probably not gonna do it. So anyway,
it was it was Frank that said do it, Kathy,
do it for one year. And Jdah came to the

(34:38):
house to meet Frank and the kids and and Frank
took her aside and he said, Yoda, I've talked to Kathy,
and I think I've got her to say, okay for
a year. But I just want you to know. You
need to know one thing about Kathy. She will have
your back, you will you can trust her. She is
not going to use you and and throw you away.

(35:01):
She doesn't, that's not her mo o. And And so
that gave hoda confidence, confidence too because she was stepping
into even though she'd been at the Today Show for years,
I was the one that was well known for daytime television,
and so you know, it was she took a risk
as well, and we had fun from day one. But
It's funny. I knew it was just not going to

(35:22):
last much longer because she she was she was married
to her notes, which you're not married to her notes.

Speaker 1 (35:30):
She's you know, Very was a journalist married to her notes.

Speaker 2 (35:34):
And she had the IFB in her ear, the interrupted feedback,
which is, you know somebody else is talking to you. Well,
I'm talking to you, and there's say, you know, Kathy,
I goes, get out of my head, Get out of
my head so I can talk to this person.

Speaker 1 (35:46):
Okay. I hated it.

Speaker 2 (35:48):
I used to say, if God wanted me to have
an i FB, I would have been born with it,
and I wasn't. So I just hated that. So one
day we were out on the plaza and this wind
came up and it just blew every one of her
cards away, and I went, it's some miracle. Then the
weather got, you know, cold, and we went in for

(36:10):
the winter like bears or something.

Speaker 3 (36:13):
I don't know what we did, but.

Speaker 1 (36:14):
We go in and.

Speaker 3 (36:17):
I said, hell, Hodah, talk to me. I'm the one
I'm sitting here.

Speaker 1 (36:23):
Isn't that fascinating? You know? I did television with mother Angelica,
who founded AWTN, and one of the first shows I
did with her. I had my notes. The music started,
the intro music. She said, what's that you got there?
I said, these my notes, you know, just let me see.
I said, well, we're about to start. Let me see.
She took the notes. She says, you don't need this.

(36:45):
She put it behind her and she's laughing as the
show starts and her music is starting. And I said,
what did you do that for? She said, sweetheart, this
is about a brother sharing with a sister and a
sister sharing with her brother. Hello, family, Welcome.

Speaker 3 (36:59):
To the show.

Speaker 1 (37:00):
And that was it. We were off to the races.
And you know I never.

Speaker 3 (37:03):
Brought that's such a blessing.

Speaker 1 (37:05):
Well, when you're trained, you know, and I have Hotus
training and I have your train. When you're trained in
a certain way, you want to keep things on track
and not use your way right. And the truth is
the fun happens in between.

Speaker 2 (37:18):
The time happens when you don't control anything.

Speaker 1 (37:23):
Tell me about Frank. You mentioned it a moment ago.
I know he's been gone for ten years this year,
which has got to be a heartache on you. A
blessing in another way, Yeah, yeah, it's both. I know
he sees them. You know what he's going.

Speaker 2 (37:38):
Oh, that's that that was more beautiful than the last
one that was going to be, that was going to
be a great athlete. That was how about five now
under the age of three, my my my son's latest
and I hope the third and final child. They're living
in my house in Connecticut, and I'm glad they're there
because Cody has made it, brought it back to its

(38:00):
gorgeous self. And they moved into COVID They only going
to stay for a couple until and then.

Speaker 3 (38:06):
He was helping me. He said, Mom, did you realize
that this is wrong? Mom?

Speaker 2 (38:09):
Do you realize that we need a new roof? I
wasn't paying attention, you know. And so I'm grateful to
him and to Erica's beautiful wife, and I love seeing
his sons. And the next baby is as a girl,
so we'll have they'll have a little girl too. Running
down the same lawn that Mike, that Cody did and

(38:30):
Cassidy did, and swimming in the same pool, and running
around same neighborhood and just having barbecuing in the same spot.
It makes me happy to know that it's Frank's legacy
for sure. Is is alive and well, you know alive
and well, so yeah, it's we talk about it all

(38:53):
the time, but every one of us has grieved in
our own ways. And you know, to be a obbosite from
the body is to be pressed with the Lord. That's
a second Corinthians five.

Speaker 1 (39:03):
I believe, I get.

Speaker 3 (39:05):
I used to know all this stuff.

Speaker 1 (39:06):
Yeah, well, we're more alive.

Speaker 2 (39:08):
We're more alive, yes, yes, exactly, We're as alive as
we will ever be in our experience and of being
a not a creature of God but God's creation creation. Yeah,
we're a lot more alive than ever. And so I

(39:28):
you know, I found them dead on the ground. I'd
left him twenty five thirty minutes before to get ready
for church. I come downstairs and I could this was
a look on his face. And I said, oh my god,
he saw Jesus. Wow, and Jesus took his breath away.

Speaker 1 (39:48):
Beautiful.

Speaker 2 (39:49):
I wrote that song that was with both Brett James,
brilliant writer.

Speaker 3 (39:54):
And he saw Jesus, He's saw jee and he took
his breath away. He was a man who never wanted
to leave his house, but he went home that day.
It's a good song.

Speaker 2 (40:10):
And so anyway, yeah, and I lived. I didn't go
out hardly at all except to go to work for
the next two years. Didn't want to. I didn't want
that look that people would give me. Strangers to go
and they go, I go, please, please don't do that.
You don't know me, you don't know what I'm going through.

Speaker 3 (40:31):
Please don't.

Speaker 2 (40:32):
I don't want to be hugged by people that don't
know me, that I don't know.

Speaker 3 (40:37):
I just and I knew they meant well. But I
couldn't deal with it for two years.

Speaker 2 (40:42):
So I went where it was safe, and that was
at the show with Hoda and my crew there that
they were fantastic. And then I went out Calhoda and
and you know, made me go out with this guy.

Speaker 3 (40:54):
This guy that I got, A guy got me. So
I went out with him. And it was just a disaster.

Speaker 2 (41:04):
Unless somebody shares my values and my faith, it's going
to be a disaster.

Speaker 3 (41:09):
The Bible says, do not.

Speaker 2 (41:10):
Be unequally yoked. And I can't be with somebody. He
was a Jewish guy. We're a very nice guy, very
very successful guy, and all that stuff. But I said,
he said, what do you mean You're not gonna you
won't go out with me again because because I don't
believe Jesus is my Lord and savior Jesus Christ.

Speaker 3 (41:26):
I said, yeah, that's basically.

Speaker 1 (41:28):
It's a prerequisite. It's a prerequisite. Here's what.

Speaker 3 (41:31):
But that's so, And I said, it's what.

Speaker 2 (41:34):
Why would I want to share the most intimate part
of my life with somebody that doesn't share my faith.

Speaker 1 (41:41):
I just tell me how your faith got because I've
always look when you're in the public eye, particularly where
you were, when when scandal hits and the media comes
after you, Oh my gosh, whether it's factory workers in
foreign lands, that's right, or your husband's of ability, that's right. Whatever,

(42:02):
this has to take an awful toll on you personally
because you have to stay in public.

Speaker 2 (42:07):
Well, I didn't have to. I could have said, you
know what, I'm done with this. Yeah, I'm out of here.
But every time things like that happen, the Lord would
remind me that I was there for a purpose and
it wasn't about me. And he knew the truth. He
knew I never had sweatshops, never had him never. You know,
you can't have a sweatshop unless you have worker that

(42:28):
you hire workers, and you have a factory.

Speaker 3 (42:31):
I didn't have any of any of that. But it
was ugly. It was ugly beyond believe.

Speaker 1 (42:36):
It became personal.

Speaker 3 (42:38):
It was about my character.

Speaker 1 (42:40):
He is a horrible person. That was me, and a
lot of people.

Speaker 3 (42:43):
Wanted to believe that my coward Stern won't.

Speaker 2 (42:45):
I said, I told you, I told you she's a phony,
She's in all that stuff. I just kept praying, praying,
praying for Howard Stern. All of that was fine. After all,
he just he begged for my forgiveness and I said,
I forgave you a long time ago. Alward you know, yeah,
yeah you do. That's what we have to do as
believers in Jesus. That's what Jesus did. Yeah, So it

(43:08):
was hard.

Speaker 1 (43:08):
I'm sure the infidelity was a harder battle.

Speaker 3 (43:11):
Then well, they came on right on.

Speaker 2 (43:13):
The The one was in ninety five, and the next
was in ninety six or ninety six and ninety seven.
I mean, I could have told you, you know, exactly
in the past, but you have to move on.

Speaker 3 (43:26):
We really do have to move on.

Speaker 1 (43:28):
Look, a lot of people deal with this, Kathy, with
infidelity and marriages and how do you but a lot
of people walk out the door yeah, particularly when they
figure this out like I'm done here. This is such
a deep wound of such a break of trust. How
did you say?

Speaker 2 (43:44):
Well, because I knew each time that I would have
an unbelievable opportunity to go in the air. People are
going to go, what's how's she going to do with this?
What's she going to say about this? And a lot
of people wanted us to fail, a lot of people
wanted to see me.

Speaker 1 (43:59):
Destroy.

Speaker 2 (44:01):
And because I was sort of doing a Charlie Kirk
thing long before Charlie Charlie was born, I was sharing
the gospel on NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, everywhere I went.
If I had a chance to share the gospel, I
did that. That was my calling. That was my calling.

(44:22):
So I say, he said, Kathy, millions of people will
be watching to see what you say now after frank infidelity,
and then after Frank had died and what happened after
I'd been accused of the of the sweatshop stuff, And
each time I just thought, Lord, give me utterance. You know,

(44:44):
I don't have words to say. So I've given probably
a thousand appearances in front of people over the years, speaking,
never written a speech in my life, never.

Speaker 3 (44:56):
From the heart, from the heart or not at all.

Speaker 1 (45:00):
The last time I was here, you had a hip
replacement and then you fell on these steps.

Speaker 3 (45:06):
That was Scond right behind you.

Speaker 1 (45:09):
What happened? And how did you get through that? This
had to be And this was a couple.

Speaker 2 (45:13):
Of rough years, three three outrageously difficult years. Yeah, but
day by day is what you do. You get always sorry,
what's the lesson?

Speaker 1 (45:25):
Trust? What did you take from it? Trust?

Speaker 2 (45:27):
It's always see the little thing over, the little lamb
above it.

Speaker 3 (45:32):
It says, fear not. I'm just one of I'm just.

Speaker 1 (45:36):
A lamb like you are, like we all are.

Speaker 3 (45:39):
I am.

Speaker 1 (45:40):
My nature is to fear, you know.

Speaker 2 (45:44):
But I don't want to be that person. I don't
want to be I want to be God's lamb or
he lifts me. We see all the artwork that my
dear friend and has done and Nielsen all over my
every house I have, and I got way too many.
I get them, I get rid of them, I sell them,
but I never get rid of my paintings by my
dear friend Anne. And I just said, Lord, I can't

(46:06):
do this. I can't do life without you. I can
do a fact simile of it. But I don't want
something phony I can't do. I want my life to
be a masterpiece of yours, because you are the creator
of all things. I want to love people in a
way that will change their lives, just they'll never be

(46:29):
the same the way Jesus did.

Speaker 1 (46:30):
This had to devastate you, though. You had to worry
that I'm never walk again.

Speaker 3 (46:34):
Oh the fall, yeah, I mean, your pelvis is broke.

Speaker 2 (46:37):
I had just gotten out of the hospital for the hip,
which took a long long time, and I got over
that like this, boom boom, They're going, what are you?

Speaker 1 (46:47):
I got off the oxy. I wasn't walking on anything.
I was fine.

Speaker 2 (46:51):
So then I fall because a friend of mine was
outside waiting for me. I just had the clearance to
go to my little farm here and go and get
in my salt pool, and we were going to have lunch.
And I said she was out in one hundred and
six degree heat, and I went, oh Lord, I gotta
get downstairs.

Speaker 3 (47:07):
I went around.

Speaker 2 (47:08):
That's the fourth floor of this place, and I went
and I went, and I remember saying, oh Jesus, please,
not my hip, Jesus, not my hip, please, Jesus. And
my pelvis was fractured completely in the front and completely
behind it. Right back into the hospital for the next
eight days, went out to my little farm. Had a

(47:30):
nurse because I needed one to do petee with me
every day and all that stuff. And she was adorable,
just precious. I had met her at the hospital the
first time, so yeah, the first visit and I said.

Speaker 3 (47:45):
I want her to come and be with me, darling,
darling girl.

Speaker 1 (47:48):
And there's nothing they can do for a pelvis, nothing
strike your ribs.

Speaker 2 (47:53):
They just have to heal on their own. It can
take a long long time and it's really painful. And
all of a sudden, I'm walking and she goes, you
can't put weight on your right foot like that. I said,
why not, It doesn't hurt. I said, shouldn't I be
an excruciating pain? And she goes, well, yeah, you should be.
I said, just call my doctor. So we called my

(48:15):
doctor and he uh, he says, coming in, I'll give
you an X ray, did an X ray right away
and says you want to see your X ray? And
I go, mm, do I you tell me? He goes,
let me show you, and he says, that's the that's
the hip. I just gave you. That's the hip, that
that's brand new and beautiful. It didn't hurt it at all.

(48:35):
That's your pelvis completely and miraculously healed by the power
of the Holy Spirit, back in front, back in front completely,
never had a bit of pain ever again.

Speaker 1 (48:47):
Then long was that? How long was the stretch between breakage?
Eighty days? What? Wow?

Speaker 2 (48:55):
A miracle is a miracle. And I didn't even know
that it was a miracle. I just it's just happened.
It just happened somewhere along like.

Speaker 1 (49:03):
I just got healed.

Speaker 2 (49:06):
And I've had some major, major people pray over me
in this world, you know, some of them that have
huge like world ministries and healing and stuff. And I
wasn't healed. And you know, you know God, God's ways
are not our ways. His thoughts are not our thoughts.
And then I had woke up one night in the

(49:27):
middle of the night and I couldn't move my left
arm at all, and I went, oh, my gosh, I've
had a stroke. And I tried to get out of
my bed and this had laid, this arm was just
and I'm trying to get out of my bed to
go to the bathroom.

Speaker 3 (49:42):
And arms are not responding nothing.

Speaker 1 (49:45):
It was dead. It was dead.

Speaker 2 (49:47):
Go And so I sort of crumbled at the end
of the bed and couldn't even get up for two
hours because on my phone I kept hearing it ringing.
It was in the bed because we were in baby
all even then, and so I just thought I got
to keep the phone with me, you know that kind
of thing.

Speaker 3 (50:05):
And my friend came over.

Speaker 2 (50:07):
She knew something was wrong, my friend, Angie, and she
knows where the keys are from my house and all that.
She came in and she said, I'm taking Virgin care
and this was the worst thing that I've ever been
happened was a major fracture of everything.

Speaker 3 (50:25):
What happened to my hip was you know, that.

Speaker 1 (50:27):
Was just ash.

Speaker 3 (50:29):
That was my arm.

Speaker 2 (50:30):
I'd had an injury years earlier that wasn't bad enough
to have it surgically dealt with. But over the years
and over the use and over the everything, it was
the same thing. It looked like a pile of arthritic
ash and a pile of bone.

Speaker 1 (50:50):
They replaced, no.

Speaker 3 (50:52):
They just fixed it.

Speaker 2 (50:53):
But it's taken That's taken me five months of PT.
I go three times a week for I go two times,
three times a week. For every other day I go
to Mandu, which I've told you about that I do,
and then and then I would swim at my farm.
It's taken that much just to have this much of

(51:13):
my arm back.

Speaker 1 (51:15):
What would you tell the twenty year old Kathy Lee
Gifford if you were starting in this industry.

Speaker 2 (51:24):
If it's the calling of God on your life and
you know it, just keep going, Just keep going, girl.
He will never leave you or forsake you. He will
never ever do to you what the world wants to do.
You know, the Satan comes to steal, kill and destroy,
and Jesus comes that we might have life. And life

(51:45):
eternally and abundantly is what the word means. And that
word is zoe in the Greek, and zoe means so
abundantly that it cannot even be measured. I said, that's
the life I want to live. Lord, That's the life
that cost me your hip. That's the life that's cost
me a shoulder, that's the life that's cost me a

(52:08):
lot of my feet. Everything I've had, you know, trying
to figure out if there's a place on me that
hasn't haven't had.

Speaker 1 (52:15):
A face left. Don't do it, you don't need it.

Speaker 3 (52:19):
I'm not going to do that now, but you know
what I mean. It's cost me the toll.

Speaker 1 (52:24):
Of a life, toll of life, but it was.

Speaker 2 (52:27):
A life well lived, and I'm grateful to God that
I had the opportunity. I wouldn't change anything really with that.

Speaker 1 (52:33):
I ask everyone a list of questions. This is my
Royal Grande questionnaire. Don't think, don't think, just say have
you done this with me before? No? Not like this? Really,
who's the person you most admire Jesus, who's the person
you most detest? Cruel cruel people? The last great book

(52:55):
you read? And your favorite book?

Speaker 2 (52:58):
Well, I don't read many of them anymore because I write.

Speaker 1 (53:01):
I'm writing them.

Speaker 2 (53:04):
My thirty seventh book or something is I just finished it.
It's about Nero and Paul. Last great book I read.

Speaker 1 (53:11):
This is a follow up on The Mary on the
Mary and the herold the Harold one.

Speaker 2 (53:15):
Yeh yeah, yeah, So I mean I'm liking that because
those are great, great epics stories. Yes, they're thrillers. Yeah,
so I mean, I wish I could give you a
good answer. I used to read all the time, but
I haven't.

Speaker 1 (53:29):
You don't have time, you don't time you do writing,
nobody wants.

Speaker 2 (53:33):
Me to do the next interview about it or you know,
sales meeting and I just got the other one out,
you know, but there people love them so and I
love these stories. I love bringing the stories to life.
I was built, I was born to tell stories. My
son's born to tell stories. Kathy Gassidy to you know,

(53:54):
my my in my genealogy is the great Rudyard Kipling
years years years back.

Speaker 3 (54:00):
My mother's side.

Speaker 2 (54:01):
Really gunga Din and the poem if so many Wonderful
Things jungle Book.

Speaker 3 (54:08):
Yes, that's exactly right.

Speaker 2 (54:10):
Yes, and uh obviously it was my on my my
father's my mother's father's side, and I and that's my
that's that's.

Speaker 3 (54:17):
The DNA God put me in early early on. Go
keep going on. Maybe I'll have a better answer for
you for the next one.

Speaker 1 (54:22):
What does Kathy Lee know that no one else knows? Hmmm.

Speaker 2 (54:31):
I don't assume to know things that other people don't know.
I've the hardest thing for me to have learned in
my walk with the Lord is patience.

Speaker 1 (54:43):
I'm not a patient person.

Speaker 3 (54:44):
I'm gonna let's get it done.

Speaker 2 (54:47):
You and I are, Yeah, we're sympatical that way. We are, Yeah,
we are.

Speaker 3 (54:50):
We're typeing. You want it done and I want it
and I want it done.

Speaker 1 (54:53):
Well, So what was saying again, what is the one thing?
What do you know that no one else knows?

Speaker 2 (54:59):
But people do know that God is faithful? People do
There are people out there that know that God will
be there when you wake up, He's with you when
you sleep.

Speaker 1 (55:07):
He sees you.

Speaker 2 (55:08):
The God who sees all of those things that I've
written about. Yeah, so that one same thing. The great,
the great martyrs of the church know far more than
I do. I haven't been martyred for my faith. I've
suffered for it, but I haven't been martyred like Charlie.

Speaker 1 (55:27):
I haven't been.

Speaker 3 (55:27):
I don't want to be. I don't want to suffer.
I'll be honest about that.

Speaker 1 (55:30):
Well, you said earlier something that that you said, I fear.
What do you see? What do you fear?

Speaker 3 (55:38):
I said, I don't want to fear.

Speaker 1 (55:40):
You don't want to fear?

Speaker 3 (55:41):
Reminders all over my house, you know, fear not fear,
not that I.

Speaker 1 (55:45):
Am with you. But what do you see?

Speaker 2 (55:46):
You know there are more admonitions in the Bible about
fear than anything.

Speaker 1 (55:49):
I did know that.

Speaker 2 (55:50):
Yes, about fear, be not afraid? Yeah, so so what
am I if I afraid of anything?

Speaker 1 (55:56):
What are you afraid of? For my children and my grandchildren?

Speaker 6 (55:59):
Now?

Speaker 2 (56:00):
You know I'm not afraid from me. You know, I'm
seventy two years old. I've lived an unbelievable life. I
had a great love and did he crush me?

Speaker 1 (56:10):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (56:11):
But did the Lord heal?

Speaker 1 (56:12):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (56:13):
Did it leave scars? Oh yeah, sure did. But we
got through it and for another fifteen years after that.

Speaker 1 (56:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (56:24):
It happened eleven years into our marriage and we were
married for twenty nine yes after Yeah, so what I
just don't assume that I know anything that somebody doesn't know.
I just know the Lord Jesus in a personal way.
I know that life is finite.

Speaker 3 (56:46):
It is.

Speaker 2 (56:47):
And when you've held your dead husband in your arms
and you see his face and mortality just it becomes
very very real. Your own mortality does.

Speaker 1 (57:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:00):
So you know you try to try to apply that
to your life and say, Lord, I know I'm not
one of these days when they come on with those dead.
You know, Robert Redford just the other day, dead at
eighty nine. I love Robert Redford, you know, And it's
just I said, one day, that's going to be me,
and they're going to put me up there and it'll
last maybe a day and people go, oh, she was funnier,

(57:24):
Oh I hated her, or whatever they're going to say.

Speaker 3 (57:26):
It's not about me, it's not.

Speaker 2 (57:30):
That's just the way we measure life in our world today.
But it'll but Jesus measures it differently, and he will
say to me, well done, cath well done, sweetie.

Speaker 1 (57:44):
I know he will. Yeah, what's your biggest regret? Do
you have one? No regret?

Speaker 3 (57:50):
Well, my first marriage was a disaster.

Speaker 1 (57:52):
Yeah, but that's but I.

Speaker 2 (57:55):
But God used that too. I never would have met Frank.
I never would have gone off to from Left La
and gone to New York to work on Good Morning America.

Speaker 1 (58:05):
And Reaches and Frank and all of that whatever it
that would.

Speaker 2 (58:08):
Have never happened to I not been.

Speaker 1 (58:11):
But the heathaw Honeys might still be on the air
tv MACS.

Speaker 2 (58:17):
TV Guide named the top ten worst sitcoms of all time.

Speaker 3 (58:25):
Then right there.

Speaker 1 (58:28):
Baby, well you see you're making headlines no matter what.

Speaker 2 (58:30):
You and I laughed, my but I just thought, you
know what, I was twenty two years old and making
ten thousand dollars in episode.

Speaker 1 (58:38):
So it wasn't it was their TV guide. It was
great for me. Thanks love it. Yeah, what's the best
piece of advice you ever received.

Speaker 3 (58:46):
From my father?

Speaker 2 (58:47):
Find something you love to do and then figure out
a way to get paid for it, because that that
what you love to do is.

Speaker 1 (58:55):
Is of the Lord and animates your whole.

Speaker 3 (58:57):
Animates your whole life.

Speaker 1 (58:59):
Final question, what happens when this is over?

Speaker 3 (59:02):
Meaning this this life?

Speaker 1 (59:04):
I let you decide?

Speaker 2 (59:05):
Well, I think we live in chapters. We live chapter
by chapter by chapter in our lives. I'm ready for
the next chapter.

Speaker 3 (59:13):
I'm ready. I'd pick up and move again if the
Lord wanted to me to.

Speaker 1 (59:17):
Yeah, what do you want to do? I know there's
a big project you still want.

Speaker 3 (59:20):
To Oh, well, you know what.

Speaker 2 (59:22):
I have two things coming up that I'm very very
excited about. My friend Randy all Take and I. He's
doing the heavy lifting on it because I couldn't walk
or travel last year. We're doing a big, big thing
on this Shroud of Turin that comes out first Fruits Easter, this.

Speaker 3 (59:42):
Easter your time.

Speaker 2 (59:43):
And I've been writing the music, writing the music with
my friends Lewis Yorke, and we've written a song called Sindone,
and I went to my little farm, I said, he said, Kathy,
will you write the music? And I said, well, yeah,
But I said, I gotta I gotta pray. I've written
a lot of really good songs, thousands of them. You know,
people don't know them because I didn't write hits, but

(01:00:05):
a lot of good songs for Broadway, the whatever. And
I've written a couple of great ones, a couple of
great ones, but I've never written a perfect song. And
I said, this has to be This song has to
be perfect. The theme song for the Shroud of Turn
documentary has to be perfect. And I said, Lord, you

(01:00:28):
know my heart, you know that this song has to
be perfect. I don't know how to do perfect. And
immediately now sindone means shroud in Italian, so immediately he
gives me the first lyric, which even at his birth

(01:00:49):
he was shrouded in mystery. You are so good, so good,
and four days later, which I could have written forty
songs in four days, but I waited on him. I
just kept waiting, waiting, waiting. I got the very last
lyric and I got out of my chair and fell
on my face, saying pracious esus. It was just unbelievable.

(01:01:13):
And I called my friends whom you know, Claude and
Chuck Harmony and my favorite writing partners of all time,
and I said, you guys, I read them the lyrics
and they said, we're coming up, We're coming tomorrow.

Speaker 6 (01:01:31):
Sindw me oo sindoney oo s do it just it haunts,
it haunts, shooting the most beautiful, beautiful way, even we
put the millow.

Speaker 2 (01:01:47):
Even at his birth he was shrouded in mystery, angels
and shepherds, a blazing star in the sky.

Speaker 3 (01:01:58):
But why but why you know?

Speaker 1 (01:02:03):
Yeah, it was.

Speaker 2 (01:02:03):
It's amazing because I said, Lord, you write it.

Speaker 3 (01:02:10):
And I'll write it down.

Speaker 1 (01:02:13):
A good way to work always as Kathy, I love you.

Speaker 2 (01:02:17):
Thank you you too, sweetheart, Thank you so much.

Speaker 3 (01:02:20):
Love to Laura for me.

Speaker 1 (01:02:22):
I will do it in case.

Speaker 2 (01:02:23):
Thank you poor Rebecca that has to suffer through life
with you.

Speaker 1 (01:02:26):
I know, well, every every every Christian needs a cross. Here.
I am here, I am Lord. I need to supply. Yes, right,
I filled the bill. You're awesome. Thank you. This was fun.
That was great. Every time I see Kathy Lee, I
come away thinking this is somebody who trusts. You heard
it in that last story, but she's really done that

(01:02:47):
throughout her life. She just trusts that God will lead
her to her next adventure and complete whatever he's calling
her to. That is not a bad lesson to take
away from a conversation with Kathy Lee, and it can
get you through a lot. I'm so glad you joined us.
I hope you'll come back. Why live a dry and narrow,
constricted life when if you fill it with good things,

(01:03:10):
it can flow into a broad, thriving Arroyo Grande. I'm
raiming at Arroyo. Make sure you subscribe, like this episode
and thank you for diving in. We'll see you next time.
Arroyo Grande is produced in partnership with iHeart Podcasts and
Deep The Studios, and it's available on the iHeartRadio, Apple,
wherever you get your podcasts.