Frank Gifford's passing in 2015 left Kathie Lee Gifford a widow after 29 years of marriage.
But the couple's love story was a long and winding one, spanning decades and enduring
scandals, all under the sometimes harsh glare of the spotlight.
Following her 1982 divorce from first husband Paul Johnson, a gospel music composer, Kathie
Lee was working as a correspondent on Good Morning America when she met former New York
Giants halfback Frank Gifford.
Gifford, who was then working as a sports broadcaster for ABC, filled in on the network's
morning show.
She recalled the first time she met her future husband as she and co-host Hoda Kotb discussed
the topic of "love at first sight" during an episode of Today.
Asked if she had ever fallen in love at first sight, Kathie Lee admitted that she, quote,
"sort of did."
She remembered preparing to do an Alpo dog food commercial with a Basset Hound when she
walked down a hallway and caught a view of her future husband's derriere.
She was smitten, she said, after encountering, quote, "the greatest pair of buns" she had
ever seen in her life.
"I walked by and then I went, 'Woo!'
Didn't know those buns belonged to Frank."
Frank also reminisced about that first meeting in an interview with the Television Academy
Foundation.
"Right away she was so much fun.
She was so alive and adorable."
Frank also revealed that he actually decided to set her up with one of his best friends
by inviting them both to lunch.
"That didn't work out.
But we did."
In a 2017 episode of Today, Kathie Lee and Hoda were discussing the topic of "dream proposals,"
which led Kathie Lee to tell the sweet story of how her late husband popped the question.
The proposal took place in Atlantic City, where she was scheduled to perform.
Kathie Lee recalled,
"Frank had not realized, when we first started dating, how much performing I did.
Very seriously he goes, 'Can I talk to you?'
I thought, 'Oh my gosh, he's going to break up with me."
Her fears were immediately set to rest when he pulled out an engagement ring.
"He takes out this magnificent ring.
I'm not going to say what he said, but it was just beautiful."
After getting a glimpse of the emerald-cut five-carat diamond, she had one question for
her new fiancé.
"Can I go show my parents?"
In her book Just When I Thought I'd Dropped My Last Egg: Life and Other Calamities, Kathie
Lee Gifford reflected on her 1986 wedding, which took place on, quote, "a glorious Indian
summer day in Bridgehampton, New York."
At the time, the Orlando Sun-Sentinel reported that Kathie Lee and Frank were wed in a small
private ceremony with the bride declaring her intention to use her married name on the
morning show she was then co-hosting with Regis Philbin.
Two months before her wedding to Frank, Kathie Lee spoke to Entertainment Tonight about their
romance and upcoming nuptials.
Their relationship, she explained, had grown and deepened over time.
"We didn't fall in love.
We really grew in love."
The couple also shared the same birthday, August 16, even though they were born 23 years
apart.
She told Entertainment Tonight that she was once asked if the age difference between them
bothered her.
"I said, 'Absolutely!
I just hope I can keep up with him!'"
She told People in 1992 that she was taken with Frank's old-fashioned approach, saying,
"I don’t ever want to go through one day of my life with this man not in it.
[...] [Frank] is a traditional guy, and his attitude was, ‘You’re mah woman.'
Some women regard that as a Neanderthal approach and find it appalling; I found it appealing
and sexy."
The road to the altar for Frank and Kathie Lee Gifford was not necessarily a smooth one.
One complication was the fact that he was more than two decades older than her, and
had been married twice before - and, in fact, was still married to his second wife when
they met for the first time.
When Kathie Lee told her husband she wanted to start a family, she was met with some resistance,
according to a 1992 People cover story.
Why?
Frank was already the father of three, from his first marriage, and also had five grandchildren.
However, he eventually relented and the couple welcomed son Cody Newton Gifford in March
1990.
As People noted in its profile, Frank had, quote, "happily thrown himself into late-life
fatherhood" when he welcomed his fourth child at age 59.
In fact, the magazine pointed out, it was his decision to try for a second child with
his third wife, feeling that his young son should have a sibling.
Their daughter Cassidy Erin Gifford came along in 1993.
In 1996, Kathie Lee Gifford's lucrative business venture to sell her own line of branded clothing
at Wal-Mart stores blew up in her face.
When labor activist Charles Kernaghan visited a Honduran factory, he was shocked to discover
the work was being done by children, and that, quote, "young girls repeatedly were groped
by the bosses," according to reporting by the Los Angeles Times.
At a clandestine meeting with some of the young female workers, the outlet provided
evidence of how little they were paid, along with labels from the clothing they produced.
These labels featured the logo of Kathie Lee's clothing line.
Suddenly, Kathie Lee's name was synonymous with sweatshops in developing nations.
She went on the air to tearfully claim no knowledge of what was going on in those factories.
Then further news emerged: workers who produced items for Kathie Lee's line in a factory in
New York's Garment District were owed back wages that the factory's owner refused to
pay.
As the New York Times reported, she reacted by telling her viewers she was sick to her
stomach about the whole situation.
Frank Gifford came to the rescue.
To help out with damage control, he visited the factory, carrying $7,500 in cash so he
could hand out hundred-dollar bills to the workers who'd been stiffed.
And Kathie Lee later worked with Clinton administration officials to help combat sweatshop abuses.
For viewers of Live with Regis and Kathie Lee, Kathie Lee Gifford's marriage to Frank
Gifford appeared to be a case of storybook perfection.
Yet 1997 proved to be a dark time for the couple when a report in a supermarket tabloid
stirred up the kind of scandal nobody had seen coming.
The Globe published a story alleging that Frank had an affair with flight attendant
Suzen Johnson.
The Giffords' first response was to denounce the claim as a total fabrication - a defense
that crumbled when the Globe subsequently published photos taken from a video of one
of Frank's hotel-room encounters with Suzen.
The Giffords' PR strategy immediately shifted, and Frank admitted to the liaison.
They said in a joint statement,
"This experience has been as painful for us as it would be for any other couple.
However, we will get through this together."
Reports at the time indicated Frank may have been set up, with Suzen allegedly paid tens
of thousands of dollars by the tabloid to lure Frank to her hotel room.
Globe editor Tony Frost dismissed the criticism, pointing out to People that the former NFL
great, quote, "was not dragged kicking and screaming to that room."
In a 2017 episode of Today, Kathie Lee opened up about the scandal that just about destroyed
her marriage 20 years earlier.
While she and Frank Gifford were able to move past his infidelity and the very public humiliation
that he had heaped upon her, she admitted to co-host Hoda Kotb that it wasn't easy.
"It's horrible.
It's a tremendous test of your relationship."
Asked by Kotb if she'd been tempted to end the marriage when Frank's cheating scandal
made headlines, Kathie Lee admitted that she had, and that she was, quote, "broken" by
the whole ordeal.
"It takes a lifetime to build that kind of friendship and history together and trust,
and it takes one stupid decision to destroy it."
The way she viewed it, exiting a marriage over an infidelity is an easy way out; remaining
married and trying to put the relationship back together is the tough grunt work of a
lasting partnership.
"A lot of people get divorced for a hangnail these days."
Back in 2000, Kathie Lee Gifford got candid during a visit to CNN's Larry King Live.
As she revealed, while attending marriage counseling, the therapist told her something
that showed her a path forward.
"'If you can't forgive your husband, forgive your children's father.'
And that hit me in my heart so deeply, because I don't know a better man, a better father
than my husband is.
I said, 'Yes, yes, and there is so much still there to love.'"
The way Kathie Lee approached her decision to stay with her unfaithful husband, she explained,
was to look at the pros and cons, weighing the "the hurt with the happiness."
Until that point, she admitted, Frank had never given her a reason to mistrust him.
She told King,
"Do I throw away a fine, truly loving, good man who's accomplished enormous amounts of
good things in his life?
Should he be defined by one stupid mistake?"
In August 2015, the Today show issued a sad statement: Frank Gifford had passed away of
natural causes at age 84.
He and Kathie Lee had been married for 29 years.
Just over a week later, Kathie Lee returned to Today and offered a touching on-air tribute
to her late husband.
"We will miss him so much.
We all keep expecting him to come around the corner."
She recounted Frank's final moments, as the family was preparing to go to church on Sunday
morning.
"He passed away instantly that morning.
All dressed in what he knew was my favorite outfit, white shirt, very tight black jeans,
he knew he looked good."
She also shared her gratitude that his death came quickly, and not from a slow, lingering
illness.
"I'm grateful that the Lord took him that way because the only thing Frank has ever
been afraid of in his entire life was being a burden to those he loved."
Kathie Lee had been a widow for more than two years when she debuted another on-air
tribute to her late husband Frank Gifford: the live performance debut of a song she had
co-written in his honor, titled "He Saw Jesus."
Speaking with Today co-host Hoda Kotb, Kathie Lee admitted she was "a wreck" in anticipation
of singing the new song on the show for the first time.
"We knew it was a special song because it is just so gut-level honest."
Not only did the song pay tribute to Frank, it also raised money for a good cause.
According to Today, all proceeds from the song would be donated to Samaritan's Purse,
described as "a nondenominational evangelical Christian organization providing spiritual
and physical aid to hurting people around the world."
In December 2018, Kathie Lee told Today viewers that she would be leaving the show in April
of the following year.
In addition to moving out of her longtime television role, she later made a physical
move to Nashville, Tennessee, her new home.
Gifford returned to Today in January 2020 to share details about her life since exiting
Today, and why she decided to move out of the Connecticut home that she and Frank Gifford
had shared for decades.
After the couple's children, Cody and Cassidy, moved out, she admitted that a home that was
once "teeming" with life, quote, "came to feel like a mortuary."
The loneliness, she admitted, was "crippling."
In an interview with The Tennessean, Kathie Lee explained how moving to Nashville had
opened up her life, allowing her to move on in a way she couldn't while living in her
Connecticut home.
She told the newspaper,
"Here's the bad news - I'm a widow, an orphan, and an empty nester.
The good news is, I have the freedom of a widow, an orphan, and an empty nester.
I'm having the life I could've only ever dreamed of."
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