At 72, Kathie Lee Gifford says aging isn’t what she anticipated. ‘The golden years? It’s a lie.’

At 72, Kathie Lee Gifford says aging isn’t what she anticipated. ‘The golden years? It’s a lie.’

Faith and household are two matters that light up Kathie Lee Gifford.

“Five grandchildren in three years,” the four-time Emmy-winning TV host tells Yahoo. “It’s like precious pandemonium.”

Her daughter, Cassidy, lives in the Nashville space and has two youngsters. Son Cody lives in Connecticut and has three. Luckily, Gifford has properties close to each, so she can log a lot of “Bubbe” time. Gifford goes by the Yiddish phrase for grandmother — though one granddaughter has shortened it to easily “Bob,” which makes her chuckle.

“Anytime a child is born is an amazing blessing. I just rejoice,” says the former host of Today With Kathie Lee and Hoda and Live With Regis and Kathie Lee. “It’s like one of the final miracles left in this world, because it’s such a dark place too often.”

The same sense of awe carries into her latest artistic work: the historic thriller Nero & Paul, How the Gospel of Grace Defeated the Ruler of Rome, out now. The guide is the second in the Ancient Evil, Living Hope trilogy she’s writing with coauthor Bryan M. Litfin.

The guide juxtaposes the contrasting figures of Nero, the Roman emperor who spent his life clawing for energy and clinging to it, and Paul, who modified his path, surrendering to religion and goal as an apostle.

Gifford, who’s also producing a film about Paul along with her son, research rabbinically and says she has constructed a relationship with God that has nothing to do with “religion.”

“I’m the least religious person you’ve talked to,” she says. “I don’t like religion. It puts us in chains. Relationship with the living God releases the chains to be who we truly, authentically are in him.”

That conviction is what she’s leaned on in her toughest moments, including the death of her husband, NFL legend Frank Gifford, in 2015.

“When I found my husband dead on the floor, I could cry tears of absolute joy because I knew where he went and who he was with,” she says. “[I] don’t fear death. The greatest day in my life will be the day that I go home to Jesus. The best day — and I’ve had some great ones.”

Prayer is a connector she’s used along with her pal and former Today colleague Savannah Guthrie, whose mom, Nancy, was kidnapped on Feb. 1.

“I probably heard the news a lot sooner than most people, and I immediately started praying for Savannah,” she says. “[Later], I just started texting her: ‘Love you. Praying for you,’” she says. “Just that message over and over again.”

It was about a month before she got a reply.

“She said, ‘Love you, friend,’” Gifford says. “I was just happy to hear her respond. I didn’t need it, but it said something to me about how she is, maybe, in her healing.”

The last time I spoke with Gifford, she had just had hip substitute surgical procedure, in 2024, which was a challenge. Now 72, she updates that she’s had 4 operations in the last yr alone.

“It just gets harder. Everything gets harder,” she says of aging. “The golden years? It’s a lie.”

One surgery came after Gifford fell on an uneven sidewalk following a morning exercise class. She shrugged it off — “My lip cracked. I didn’t break a tooth. I’m good” — until an X‑ray revealed two broken bones.

“You can do all kinds of stuff to your body, but it knows how old you are and where you’ve been and what you did when you went there,” she says. “No keeping secrets from it.”

But her thoughts is sharp, whether or not she’s going deep on biblical matters or recounting the origin story of how wine began flowing on Today’s fourth hour.

She says she’s determined to keep it that way. Instead of asking Siri or Google to look up a fact, she runs through the alphabet until the answer comes. She also credits memorization for boosting her brain.

“It makes my mind work,” she says. “It keeps it sharp.”

Her late husband was posthumously recognized with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) and her father had Lewy physique dementia, so she’s aware of hurdles others face.

Gifford herself is unstoppable. She’s working on her next book and looking ahead to an upcoming documentary about her life.

If age has gifted her anything, Gifford says it’s clarity about what matters. She’s been letting go of possessions and investing in things she believes in.

“I’ve made tons of money in my career, which I never dreamed I’d be able to have,” she says. “I’ve given away, I would say, more than half of it, and been grateful to do it.”

Profits from her religion‑based tasks, like Nero & Paul, go to the Rock, the Road & the Rabbi Foundation.

She laughs that Frank used to get mad at how much she gave. “He stopped doing that when he realized that once I gave something, I got it back a hundredfold,” she says. “I said, ‘God loves a generous soul.’ … You can never out‑give God. I’d rather die giving something away than holding it unto myself and not being able to take it with me anyway.”

Today, Cody helps run the businesses while Gifford focuses on the work she feels called to do.

“Some people love their misery,” she says. “I’m not one of them. I want the joy. I want the zoe.”

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