In Kelly Ripa’s memoir, she talked about her relationship with Regis Philbin, which she indicated wasn’t great. I don’t have a problem with Kelly saying she didn’t get along with Regis and that he made it hard to work with him. My issue was instead of highlighting a workplace dynamic that many of us have had to navigate, Kelly spoke as if she was giving a big “Nuh-uh!” to a dead man. But, that is her right, to tell her story of how she came up in her career. And I am sure she had it rough, with huge expectations set upon her when she started at Live with Regis and Kelly. Not to mention huge shoes to fill. Unfortunately, those shoes she filled want nothing to do with the stories Kelly’s peddling. Kathie Lee Gifford has seen the headlines Kelly’s been generating and she’s upset. Unlike Kelly, Kathy and Regis had a very genuine friendship that lasted until his death. When she saw Kelly had unkind things to say about her friend and co-worker, Kathie decided she’d stay away from Kelly’s book.
Kathie Lee Gifford has no plans to read Kelly Ripa’s first book — but she doesn’t appreciate her Live! replacement’s anecdotes about Regis Philbin.
Gifford, who co-hosted the morning show with Philbin from 1985 to 2000, was asked about Ripa’s new headline-making memoir. In Live Wire, Ripa opens up about her relationship with Philbin even telling Yahoo Entertainment, “I make no illusions that there was this friendship.”
“I was very sorry to see the headlines,” Gifford, 69, told Rosanna Scotto on Fox 5’s Good Day New York. “We see headlines all the time, you know, you never know what’s true and what’s not true… I went, ‘I hope this isn’t true. I just hope it isn’t.’ Cause what’s the point? You know, I don’t get it. 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, Rosanna,” Gifford continued. “He was 15 years the best partner I could ever, ever have professionally. But he was my friend. We were dear friends and after I left the show for the next 20 years we became better friends. Dearer friends. I saw him two weeks before he died.”
“We always just picked up right where we left off,” Gifford recalled. “We were absolutely perfect together for television. We never had an argument, not an unkind word in 15 years. So that was my reality.”
Gifford hopes Philbin’s widow, Joy, and his four adult children don’t see Ripa’s stories.
“Lord, protect Joy and the girls from this,” Gifford said, emphasizing: “In all the years I’ve known him, I never saw him unkind to anybody.”As for Ripa, Gifford said she’s “not going to say anything ugly about anybody.”
“I never have, and I’m not going to start now,” she said. “I’m just saying my reality is something completely different than that.”
[From Yahoo! Entertainment]
As I said in another post, Kelly and I have a lot of similarities. I identify with her in the Regis situation. I had a boss who just didn’t like me. I put his g-d business on the map as an event space and he couldn’t care less if I was in the room or not. What made it worse was he did become friends with other people on the staff, so it was glaringly obvious that there was something about me he didn’t gel with. He didn’t cross a line into harassment or anything, he was just a cold m-f who made sharing an office incredibly uncomfortable. So I feel for Kelly, working for a man who everybody in America likes and she desperately wants to like her. And, he quite obviously had a close relationship with his former co-host Kathie Lee, which probably salted Kelly’s wounds as well. But Kelly’s comments sound like her anger is misplaced.
As for Kathie Lee weighing in on this, she didn’t need to. I assume she was asked though, and I assume she felt the need to defend her dear, dead friend. To be fair, Kelly didn’t drag Kathie Lee into this. Technically Kelly was setting the record straight from when Regis told Larry King she was mad at him for leaving, even if she did wait this long to do so. But Kathie Lee knew him pretty well so I guess she felt he needed defending. I don’t know Joy Philbin well but she always struck me as a person with a good head on her shoulders, I don’t think she needs shielding from Kelly suggesting she didn’t have a great relationship with Regis.
Embed from Getty Images
Embed from Getty Images
Photo credit: Avalon Red and Getty Images
Source: Read Full Article