By , Jessica Sager
Published May 14, 2018
Kathie Lee Gifford and Howard Stern had a one-sided feud for three decades — but it’s finally over after the “Today” hostess killed him with kindness.
“Howard Stern had a feud with me going on 30 years. I never met him. I never listened to his show. He hated my guts for 30 years,” Gifford, 64, said on the “Today” show this week while discussing the end of Katy Perry and Taylor Swift’s beef. “Hated my husband, hated my children. Hated everything I stood for.”
“And one day, right here, I was up in the makeup room, and all of a sudden he’s here to announce ‘America’s Got Talent,'” she recalled. “I just feel the Lord saying very clearly to me, ‘Go down and say hello to Howard.’ I’m standing right here … and I go, ‘Howard, Howard, I’m Kathie Lee. I thought it was time I say hello. I want to wish you the very best with your show.’ And I left. He was really flabbergasted.”
Gifford revealed that an extremely remorseful Stern, 64, then called her privately to bury the hatchet.
“There’s a message from him, a voicemail,” she said. “‘I was blown away and will you call me?’ He calls again during dinner, we had a half-hour conversation. ‘Will you forgive me, Kathie, please? I’m doing some hard work on my life. I know I hurt you. I’m so sorry and I need to ask you to forgive me.’”
Gifford said that she didn’t dress down the radio personality or his decades of hurtful comments, which included calling her “the world’s dumbest person,” instead opting to congratulate him on working on himself and telling him she forgave him “30 years ago” and prays for him “every single day.”
It wasn’t the first time Gifford recalled her reconciliation with the self-professed King of All Media. During a February 2014 visit to “Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen,” Gifford revealed what Stern said to her in response.
“[He said], ‘I used a lot of language, but I’m so sorry. You never deserved it,’” she said, adding that he told her, “‘You’ve always been so nice. You just pissed me off because you were everything I wasn’t.’”
This article originally appeared in the New York Post.
https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/how-kathie-lee-gifford-won-over-howard-stern-after-30-year-feud