Kathie Lee Gifford is opening up about her health.
The 72-year-old former Today host got candid in a new interview about various surgeries she’s had in the past year.
“I feel like Mr. Potato Head! One thing falls off and then another,” she told People.
Kathie Lee said that after getting a total hip replacement a little over a year ago, she had to get another surgery on her hip after fracturing it while playing with her grandkids. She then broke her arm rolling over on it one night. She also fell on uneven pavement, resulting in another broken bone, followed by cataract surgery for her eyes.
“You have to have a sense of humor about everything. Thank God I’ve never lost that, even in my bleakest moments. I’m a tough broad,” Kathie Lee summed up her past year, noting that she struggled with interacting with her young grandchildren.
“I couldn’t carry them, I couldn’t love on them, I couldn’t run and play with them. All I could do was sit there and sing and write silly songs with them,” she reflected, noting that like her late husband Frank Gifford, she stopped going out as much.
“Frank said to me before he passed, ‘When I go somewhere, I know what people are expecting from me. I want to be Frank Gifford when I go out. I want to be Kathie Lee, the person they expect. I don’t want to disappoint people. But when you’re in pain, it’s so debilitating, and everything’s a grimace. I’ve had emotional pain many times in my life, but never this chronic physical pain where you literally want to go home to Jesus,” Kathie Lee said.
“I wanted to die a few times. I wasn’t going to hurt myself. I wasn’t going to kill myself. I just didn’t want to be here — as blessed as I am,” she admitted.
After the surgeries, physical therapy and stem cell therapy, she can now run with her grandkids.
“I want to be remembered as somebody that if they only met me one time, they think, ‘She was kind. She made me laugh,’” she added, reflecting on her legacy and “so many mountains I’ve climbed.”
For more from Kathie Lee Gifford, head to People.com.
The morning show host also landed in some controversy after questioning the LGBTQ+ acronym.
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