Kathie Lee Gifford says she turned to faith during one of the most challenging moments of her life. The former “Today” co-anchor recently wrote a new book titled “I Want to Matter: Your Life Is Too Short and Too Precious to Waste.” It explores the power of self-love and features self-reflection for the readers to understand their dreams and hopes better. In the book, the 70-year-old looked back at her husband Frank Gifford’s extramarital affair. The Emmy Award-winning TV host told Fox News Digital that her faith in God taught her the power of forgiveness after facing a painful betrayal.
Gifford told Fox News Digital, “First of all, I loved Frank. I was pissed at him, believe me. And furious that he would take something as precious as our marriage into a hotel room with somebody. It was so unlike him. And he put his whole family at risk because of it. But I also knew that we had a family that we loved.” Gifford shared that “when you hurt, you pray.” And it was love, she said, that gave her the courage to forgive. She explained, “I did it to save our marriage because I loved Frank. I was not going to break up our family. Nope. A man said to me once, ‘Kathie, if you can’t forgive your husband, forgive your children’s father.’ I said, ‘Well, that guy’s wonderful. That guy is a beautiful human being.’ He said, ‘Then forgive that guy.’ It worked.”
Gifford admitted, “I was never the same though. People take sex so casually, and it pretty much did me in for a long time. But I just went back to work, thanked everybody for their prayers and tried to avoid any newspapers for a long, long time.” According to the book, Frank met a woman at the Regency Hotel on Park Avenue in New York City on May 1, 1997. Gifford wrote that for years after the affair, she avoided driving down Park Avenue to avoid being triggered by hurtful emotions. With the help of a counselor, Gifford was able to forgive her husband. She wrote, “My whole faith is built on the foundation of forgiveness: Jesus died for me for the forgiveness of my sins. We cannot withhold from others what He has freely given to us.”
In the book, Gifford described how she struggled to see her husband the same way after the affair, noting, “he wasn’t my hero anymore.” Still, she did not have any regrets about forgiving him. She wrote, “My children’s father was a wonderful, loving, gentle, compassionate, generous, and sweet man. He was easy to forgive because I knew his heart. I prayed an almost impossible prayer. ‘Lord, please give me a deeper desire for Frank than I have ever had for him, even more than at the beginning.’”
Gifford continued, “This was an epic request. I was crazy in love with Frank then and grateful to finally have the kind of exciting, thrilling, ecstatic love I’d only known about from books or movies. To my surprise, God answered my prayer and gave me a desire for Frank unlike anything we had ever experienced. Every time we made love, it was truly healing for me.” While Gifford “never got over” Frank’s infidelity, their love endured. The beloved patriarch passed away in 2015 at age 84.