The 67-year-old TV celebrity, Kathie Lee Gifford recently opened up about her horrific experience with Bill Cosby in a private interview. She revealed that Bill Cosby who was recently convicted and imprisoned for a sexual assault made a move on her before two years.
According to the TV presenter, she and Bill Cosby became very good friends during that time and she was totally shocked that night when the comedian crossed the line and tried to kiss her.
“He tried to kiss me,” she recalls. “He was not the first man during a multi-decade career that came on to me, and I’m just very grateful that I never let any of them take it any further than that. This was the most admired man in America for years,” she says of the Cosby Show star. “He was called America’s dad, remember?”
“And the one and only time that he did try to kiss me, I said, ‘No. Bill, you’re my friend.’ He goes, ‘You’re right. Good night.’ So I found those accusations against him very painful, because that’s not the man I knew.”
“I never saw anybody personally being treated that way by him in two years, traveling all over the country, staying in the same house with him whenever we went to Harris, or in Reno,” Gifford says. “We had great fun together, and I never thought a thing of it ever. He would make me cappuccinos, he’d make the girls cappuccinos, he would pour me a glass of wine on occasion, and I would read the stories about how he would put drugs in other women’s drinks and it was just foreign to me.”
“I didn’t doubt the women’s stories,” she adds of his accusers. “I don’t know why he behaved the way he did with the other women, that’s their story to tell.”
“I was as surprised as the rest of the world when, years later, Bill Cosby, at one time the most respected and admired man in America, was accused of all manner of despicable acts with a myriad of women,” Kathie Lee Gifford wrote.
August 2020
The ex presenter of ‘Today Show’ Kathie Lee broke her silence in a recent chat with People about her friendship with later co-presenter Regis Philbin. She said that he was always there to support her, especially amidst her husband’s infidelity. Regis died a few days back due to natural causes and he was 84.
Kathie’s husband Frank Gifford was the ex-New York Giants player and commentator. The couple has two children and back in 1997 he was caught cheating in a huge scandal when he had an illegal relationship with an air hostess named Suzen Johnson and she was said to be already married.
The scandal was quite popular and was the talk of the media making Kathie’s life a mess amidst her tough times.
At this time it was her co-host and friend Regis to came forward to back her up. During her chat, she started saying: “Everybody talks about the hard times that I went through that were public. And they were hard times. By any definition, they were the most painful times of my life, for sure.”
And she went on to add that she was firm not to bring in the common people’s views to know her worth and Regis helped her out.
“But I always knew Regis had my back. He always protected me in the air. The Bible says, ‘You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’ I knew my own truth. I was never going to let what the world said about me define me. And he always supported me in all of that.”
Later Kathie forgave her husband and they lived together until he passed away in 2015.