Feuding or pleasant? Followers have speculated about Kathie Lee Gifford and Kelly Ripa‘s relationship for the reason that latter took over as Regis Philbin‘s Dwell! cohost in 2001.
The previous At the moment contributor started working with the late Who Needs to Be a Millionaire host in 1985, once they co-anchored The Morning Present for New York Metropolis’s ABC station. Three years later, the sequence went into nationwide broadcast, and it was retitled Dwell! With Regis and Kathie Lee.
The duo had been staples of morning TV for greater than 20 years till Gifford left the present in July 2000. There have been rumors on the time that her exit occurred due to a feud with Philbin, however the Take heed to My Coronary heart creator later revealed that she really left the sequence to take care of her ailing father, Aaron Epstein, who died in 2002.
“My daddy was dying, and I used to be not snug making it public,” the Daytime Emmy winner instructed the New York Submit in August 2007. “I knew it was going to be a horrendous household expertise. I simply needed to have that point with him with out cameras in my face and with out having to clarify issues. I wished my daddy to have the ability to die with the dignity by which he had lived his life.”
After Gifford’s exit, Philbin started holding on-air auditions to seek out her substitute. Ripa initially tried out in November 2000 and was introduced because the present’s everlasting cohost in February 2001. The New Jersey native was greatest recognized on the time for her function on the long-running cleaning soap opera All My Youngsters.
“The largest false impression is that all of it got here simply,” Ripa wrote of her early days at Dwell! in her 2022 memoir, Dwell Wire: Lengthy-Winded Brief Tales. “Individuals suppose I simply confirmed up in the future and was handed a job and I lived fortunately ever after and now every thing’s good. However it by no means is that approach.”
The Broad Metropolis alum added that she labored extremely exhausting to “earn” respect on the speak present. “There have been good and dangerous days. I don’t need to really feel like I’m slamming anybody or that I’m being disrespectful. However I additionally need folks to comprehend it was not a cakewalk,” she wrote. “It took years to earn my place there and earn issues which might be routinely given to the boys I labored with.”
Gifford, for her half, joined the At the moment present in 2008, cohosting the fourth hour with Hoda Kotb. She additionally sometimes returned to her outdated stomping grounds at Dwell!, each earlier than and after Philbin’s July 2020 demise at age 88. In October 2020, she appeared on Dwell! With Kelly and Ryan for the primary time since her former cohost’s passing.
The date of her look occurred to fall on Ripa’s fiftieth birthday, so she started her interview by sending her greatest needs to the Hope & Religion alum. “Joyful birthday, darling,” Gifford mentioned. “Take pleasure in it. Take pleasure in 50. It goes by so quick.”
Maintain scrolling for every thing Gifford and Ripa have mentioned about one another over time.
