Kathie Lee Gifford made a heartwarming — and hilarious — return to Today over 5 years since she left the NBC morning display.
“What does it feel like coming back right here?” Gifford’s former cohost Hoda Kotb asked her on the Tuesday, March 26, episode of Today With Hoda and Jenna. “It feels excellent,” she responded. “It’s been 5 years.”
Gifford, 70, followed up via poking amusing at Jenna Bush Hager, who took over her role as cohost of the fourth hour of Today in April 2019. “You sought after my job so badly,” Gifford joked after which her daughter, Cassidy, apologized for her mom’s words. “Hope you’re glad now. You may just smell it on her sooner than.”
Bush Hager, 42, replied with laughter prior to asking Gifford whether or not she can be up for the duty of internet hosting the display in 2024.
“No,” Gifford immediately responded. “I've stated so frequently, especially in the days when I was with Regis, we talk for 23 minutes instantly with out a notice … no writers, anything else. Back then, you weren’t enhancing your self all the time. That’s the difficulty with nowadays, too, with humor. When you gotta take into consideration what you’re gonna say, the joys is going out.”
Gifford in the past cohosted Live! With Regis and Kathie Lee with the late Regis Philbin from 1985 to 200 prior to becoming a member of Today in 2008. Gifford introduced she used to be stepping down from her position at Today after nearly Eleven years of internet hosting in December 2018.
Kathie Lee Gifford is again in Studio 1A!
The former TODAY co-host @KathieLGifford joins Hoda and Jenna with her daughter, Cassidy Gifford, to talk about running in combination of their new Prime Video series “The Baxters” and more. pic.twitter.com/ycNtinUAP4
— TODAY with Hoda & Jenna (@HodaAndJenna) March 26, 2024
“Hoda’s identified it for a long, long time,” she explained on air at the time. “All those other initiatives have been bubbling up in my and [are] so thrilling — films and tune and so many wonderful things. I want time for them to do them properly.”
While reminiscing on her hosting days on Monday, Gifford praised Kotb for popping out of her shell. “The most fun factor for me when I used to be here was watching you develop into ‘that Hoda,’” she shared. “I take note announcing to you, ‘If you can be the same individual on the air with me, Hoda, as you're here in the hair and make-up, we’re gonna have a hit display.’ And she got rid of the notes … And after we started being pals, [it clicked] because it was unique.”
Earlier within the broadcast, Gifford and Cassidy, 30, joined Kotb and Today stars Al Roker, Craig Melvin, Savannah Guthrie and Carson Daly out on 30 Rockefeller Plaza. “I haven’t worn prime heels for five years,” Gifford quipped after hugging Kotb.
Guthrie, 52, known as Gifford a “sight for sore eyes” prior to asking whether she neglected “freezing out right here on the Plaza.” Her reaction? “Not one bit,” she said.
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Earlier this month, Gifford exclusively informed Us Weekly that she had no interest in taking on a brand new website hosting gig “in this international the place you got to watch what you are saying,” including, “I’ve made a living no longer watching what I say.”
Instead, she’s set to celebrity alongside Cassidy in the new Prime Video collection The Baxters, which premieres on March 28.
“[I sought after] to be a part of one thing that would give other people hope and that may show the actual facet of a Christian family and what they go through,” Cassidy told Us of the display. “I feel so regularly it’s so cookie-cutter and so clichéd when it’s depicted within the media, and why some other folks don’t even want to go close to it. They assume it’s in order that saccharine and they’re going to really feel like they’re judged.”
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