Kathie Lee opens up on 'crippling loneliness' of being a 'widow, orphan and empty-nester'

Jennifer Kline
Updated ·2 min read

Kathie Lee Gifford is preparing to say goodbye to her post at NBC's "Today," but it won't be the most difficult farewell she's bid in recent years.

Gifford, 65, spoke candidly about the pain of losing her husband and mother in 2015 and 2017, respectively, in the new issue of AARP. She's struggled to find peace amid the pain of solitude, she admitted, especially with her children now grown and out of the house.

"It dawned on me the other day: I'm a widow, I'm an orphan, because my mother also passed, and I'm an empty nester all at the same time," she said. "If you're not careful, what you've lost in life can define you. It's so much healthier to be defined by what you still have. I'm making big changes in my life because I need to, really big changes that are feeding my soul. Otherwise, despair sets in and loneliness can be crippling."

Gifford's husband, Frank Gifford, died in August 2015, and her mother, Joan Epstein, passed away two years later. In time, her sprawling Long Island home began to feel more punishing than pleasant.

"I didn't have to stay in this big house anymore," she said. "I found myself dealing with crippling loneliness. I had to make moves and spiritual moves. You gotta make new memories or the old ones are going to kill you."

It's a process, she indicated, that's easier said than done.

"Sunset used to be a huge thing in our family. Every day, no matter what, we'd yell, 'Sunset alert!' and we had to stop whatever we were doing, go out, and honor another day," Gifford said. "And now I still say it out loud to the puppies. We still go out and do it, but sunset alerts are some of my saddest moments when it's just me and the dogs at home."

Despite the emotional setbacks, Gifford is now pursuing the career dreams in music and film that she says she's had since childhood. Exiting "Today" after a decade on the air, she said, is allowing her to take those new steps.

“I’m not reinventing myself at all," she said. "I am evolving as an artist and a human being, and I will be till the day I die. People who think I'm a silly person do not know me at all. I'm 10 percent silly and 90 percent dead serious in my life.”