On Tuesday, Kathie Lee Gifford revealed that her 11th season on the fourth hour of TODAY will be her last one, and her pal and co-anchor, Hoda Kotb, was clearly moved by that news.
But there was another on-air partner — from Kathie Lee’s past — who had a special message for the beloved member of the TODAY family.
Regis Philbin can certainly understand how Hoda must be feeling, because he had to face a TV future without KLG by his side when she left “Live With Regis and Kathie Lee” in 2000 after more than a decade.
“He said, ‘Kath, I’m so happy for you,'” Kathie Lee recalled Wednesday morning. “He said, ‘There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about the 15 years we spent together and how much I loved you.’ … He said, ‘It was never the same after you left,’ because it isn’t.”
With that line, she offered Hoda a knowing glance and added, “That doesn’t mean it can’t be good and better in some ways.”
Regis also told her that what she and Hoda have had together “has been just unbelievable.”
