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Kathie Lee Gifford is starting today off with a feud.
Former “Today” show co-host Kathie Lee Gifford announced Monday that she has no plans to read Kelly Ripa’s autobiography “Live Wire: Long-Winded Short Stories” due to comments made by Ripa regarding her former co-host Regis Philbin.
“I’m not gonna read the book. I haven’t read it. I don’t even know if it’s out yet,” Gifford said on Monday’s “Good Day New York.”
“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.”
Philbin, who died in July 2020 at the age of 88, co-hosted “Good Day New York” with Gifford.
“We were dear friends and after I left the show, for the next 20 years, we became better friends, dearer friends,” recalled Gifford.
“I saw him two weeks before he died and the minute I found out he had passed, I got in my car and drove to their house.”
In her book, Ripa described her relationship with Philbin as being filled with “good days and bad days.”
“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,” said the former soap opera star.
“It took years to earn my place there and earn things that are routinely given to the men I worked with. Including an office and a place to put my computer.”
The Post reached out to Gifford for comment.
“It’s sad she would try to manufacture an artificial controversy based on a book that she has never read and headlines that didn’t exist until she created them,” said a rep for Kelly Ripa.
“If she had actually read this #1 Best Seller, she would have known that Kelly was respectful and honest about this topic and how the other 98% of the book is thoughtful, fun and insightful.”
Gifford said Monday that she was flabbergasted to read about negative headlines about her late co-host.
“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,” recounted the 69-year-old Emmy winner.
“In all the years I knew him, I never saw him unkind to anyone. I never did. If he liked you, he teased you,” she said.
“I’m not going to say anything ugly about anybody. I never have and I’m not going to start now. My reality is something completely different from that.”
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