Kathie Lee Gifford was recently hospitalized due to a fall.
The 70-year-old TV personality told ET that she suffered a fall that fractured her pelvis in two places, between hip replacement surgery recovery. Gifford overexerted herself moving books for a book signing in Nashville and ended up tripping the next day when she went to answer the door for friends at her house.
“It didn’t take long because I was weak at that point,” Gifford explained to People. “Next thing you know, I’m back in the hospital with a fractured pelvis, front and back. This is more painful than anything I’ve ever been through with my hip. My pelvis is incredibly sore.”
“You think you know your body and the next thing you know your body changes as you get older,” she shared. “As much as I don’t want to think about it, I am.”
The old one Today The talk show anchor appears to be on the mend, as new photos taken by her son, Cody Gifford, show her smiling in a hospital bed.
Staring at a laptop in front of her, Gifford remains busy at work promoting her new book, Herod and Mary: The True Story of the Tyrant King and the Mother of the Resurrected Savior.
Earlier this month — before the pelvic injury — Gifford appeared on Today Show, returning to studio 1A sit with Hoda Kotb59. Gifford shared that she was recovering after hip replacement while promoting her new novel.
Before the procedure, Gifford was in “agonizing pain” and had “one of the worst hips” her doctor had ever seen. Gifford said she had the hip replacement surgery about a month ago.
“I was in agonizing pain,” Gifford said, noting that her physical discomfort “was terrible” before the surgery.
“My doctor finished the surgery, came to tell me everything went well, and then said, ‘Kathie, how have you been existing all this time?'” Gifford recalled. “He said, ‘That’s one of the worst hips I’ve ever seen.'”
Gifford’s active lifestyle may be partly to blame for the deterioration of her hip.
“You’re always on the move,” Kotb told Gifford. The two co-hosted Today together for 11 years before Gifford retired and moved to Nashville in 2019. “I never saw you stop, even if you were in the car. I remember, you’d be writing notes. You’re always — your brain, your body is always working.”
In April, Gifford sat down with ETRachel Smith for an intimate interview, where she spoke about her decision to leave two of TV’s most popular morning shows: Today It is Live! With Regis and Kathie Lee.
“Some of it is just instinct, you know? I’ve been in this business for 60 years, so I’ve had a lot of failures and a lot of successes — successes beyond my wildest dreams,” Gifford told ET. “You’re sitting right now under four Emmys that I never dreamed I’d get. I’m grateful for them, but the older I get, the less that matters, too.”
She added: “I look at (my Emmys) and I’m grateful, thank you, Lord. But my trophies are the people I’ve touched in life, the people (in) both places. I worked 15 years with Regis and 11 years with Hoda. The trophies that we win in life that really matter are human, you know.”
Herod and Mary: The True Story of the Tyrant King and the Mother of the Resurrected Savior is now available.
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