Kathie Lee Gifford: How Her Flawed Marriage Saved Others From Divorce

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Kathie Lee Gifford knows what it feels like to be humiliated before the entire country. During Kathie's marriage to Frank Gifford, she had to see proof of her husband's infidelity splashed across a tabloid's front page for all of her compatriots to gawk at. It turned out that the Globe had reportedly paid former flight attendant Suzen Johnson to lure him into a bugged hotel room so the tabloid would have audio and video proof of their scandalous rendezvous in 1997. But despite the cheating scandal, Kathie reconciled with Frank. And her decision has helped others work through marital issues.

It wasn't easy for the former "Live! with Regis and Kathie Lee" co-host to stay in the marriage, but she doesn't regret it. Hearing from others who drew inspiration from her serves as a positive reminder of her strength. "There's not a day that goes by that somebody doesn't come up to me and say, 'I just want you to know I had separated from my husband, and I went back. We went for counseling. We healed our marriage,'" she told People in June 2026.

Kathie leaned into her faith to guide her, reminding herself of her religion's emphasis on forgiveness. Fans found her take inspiring, and their accounts have helped her see how impactful working on her marriage was beyond her own experience. "All these years later, I hear from people all the time who say I'm still married because of what you went through," she told ET in 2020. Kathie is proud of her decision, but that doesn't mean it was easy.

Just because Kathie Lee Gifford ultimately stayed with Frank Gifford doesn't mean she found it easy to forgive him. For years, she avoided driving down the road of the New York hotel where the scandal unfolded because the wounds remained raw for a long time. She sought the help of a therapist to help her work through the pain. She forgave the former NFL player, but the experience never fully left her. "I was never the same," she told Fox News in 2024.

While Kathie was committed to forgiving Frank, she still struggled. She eventually learned that she had a harder time forgiving her husband than forgiving the father of her children, so she focused on that. "My children's father was a wonderful, loving, gentle, compassionate, generous, and sweet man," she wrote in "I Want to Matter: Your Life Is Too Short and Too Precious to Waste," her 2024 memoir (via Fox News). "He was easy to forgive because I knew his heart." 

Frank wasn't her "hero" anymore, but he was still the man she loved. That remained the same until his death in 2015. "Frank will always be the love of my life," she said in the People interview. While Kathie has dated since her husband's death, she hasn't settled down with anyone special as of this writing. However, she's keeping her heart open to the possibility of future love. "If God wants to do something miraculous, like give me another great love [then I'm open to it]. And so I leave room for the miraculous to happen," she said.