Kathie Lee Gifford Will Leave The Today Show And Work On A Project In Israel

Kathie Lee Gifford Image by Getty Images

By Jenny Singer December 12, 2018

It’s the end of an early morning, brassy-voiced era: Kathie Lee Gifford has announced that she will leave the “Today” show on NBC, which she has co-hosted with Hoda Kotb for nearly eleven years, this April.

Gifford, who on Tuesday morning announced her departure through tears, will be headed to greener — or maybe drier — pastures: the 65-year-old Christian comic and TV host plans to work on a short movie, “The God Who Sees,” in Israel.

“The God Who Sees” is a reference to a description of God in the Torah, “el roi,” which first appears in Genesis. When God goes to Hagar, a maidservant whom Abraham has treated as a concubine and whom Sarah has abused, and tells her she is pregnant and will have a great number of offspring, she praises God, saying, “You are the God who sees.” Despite that interesting connection to the Torah, Gifford, a religious Christian with Jewish roots, is likely making a Christian-themed movie.

Announcing her departure, Gifford honored her co-host, Kotb, with whom she said she “fell in love” during her time as an anchor on the morning show. “We started out as a nothing burger,” Gifford remembered of the show, which clocks in at four hours a day, five days a week. “We do life together,” she said of the “Today” crew. Before her turn on the “Today” show, Gifford co-anchored “Live” with Regis Philbin for fifteen years.

Jenny Singer is the deputy lifestyle editor for the Forward. You can reach her at [email protected] or on Twitter @jeanvaljenny

Jenny Singer is a freelance writer with pieces in Vox, the Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, Teen Vogue, and more. She was previously a staff writer at Glamour and the Forward, and she’s currently getting an MFA in nonfiction writing at the University of Iowa.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO