Kathie Lee Gifford Fielding Lucrative Offers For Big TV Return, Considered For ‘The View’ Before Alyssa Farah Griffin Joined: Sources
Dec. 30 2022, Published 1:00 p.m. ET
Kathie Lee Gifford has been privately plotting a potential big television return, RadarOnline.com has learned.
Sources close to the situation revealed Gifford, 69, has been receiving lucrative offers for various projects from TV bigwigs. An insider said the television icon has been finding it increasingly difficult to refuse.
The former Today host has made a new life in Nashville since leaving the Northeast in 2019 — four years after the death of her husband Frank Gifford at 84.
A source said The View was eager to have Gifford join as a conservative voice prior to hiring Alyssa Farah Griffin. One insider said, “But Kathie Lee wouldn’t want to go into the snake pit and battle people like Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar. She’s much too nice.”
The source said ABC execs felt Kathie Lee would add stability to The View table — and provide some much needed humor.
The insider said that Gifford “is still on the fence about a TV return – but might jump on an opportunity in Tennessee!”
As RadarOnline.com previously reported, earlier this year, Gifford made headlines when she spoke out in defense of Regis Philbin after Kelly Ripa spoke negatively about him in her book.
"There were good and bad days," Ripa said about her time working with Philbin. "I don't want to feel like I'm slamming anyone or that I'm being disrespectful. But, I also want people to know it was not a cakewalk."
"I was really sorry to see the headlines," Gifford during an interview with Rosanna Scotto. "I was in Israel and I saw that and I went, ‘Oh, I hope this isn't true.' I just hope it isn't, because what's the point? I don't get it."
“I'm not gonna read the book. I haven't read it. I don't even know if it's out yet. I just know what Regis was to me. He was, for 15 years, the best partner a person could ever, ever have professionally but he was my friend."