{"id":44533,"date":"2025-05-28T10:16:46","date_gmt":"2025-05-28T14:16:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/?p=44533"},"modified":"2025-06-12T10:41:59","modified_gmt":"2025-06-12T14:41:59","slug":"kathie-lee-gifford-says-faith-is-her-secret-to-thriving-in-her-70s-i-cant-breathe-without-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/05\/kathie-lee-gifford-says-faith-is-her-secret-to-thriving-in-her-70s-i-cant-breathe-without-him.html","title":{"rendered":"Kathie Lee Gifford Says Faith is Her Secret to Thriving in Her 70s: &#8216;I Can&#8217;t Breathe Without Him&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_44828\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-44828\" style=\"width: 1200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2025\/05\/Kathy-Lee-Gifford_credit-Kathy-Hutchins-Shutterstock.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-44828\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2025\/05\/Kathy-Lee-Gifford_credit-Kathy-Hutchins-Shutterstock.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-44828\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kathy Hutchins \/ Shutterstock.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>At 71, Kathie Lee Gifford is thriving\u2014and she says the secret is her unwavering faith in God.<\/p>\n<p>The beloved former <em>Live with Regis and Kathie Lee<\/em> co-host recently spoke with <em>Fox News Digital<\/em> at QVC&#8217;s TikTok Super Brand Day, where she reflected on what it means to embrace life in her 70s. Serving as a returning ambassador for QVC&#8217;s &#8220;Quintessential 50&#8243;\u2014a campaign highlighting inspiring women over 50\u2014Gifford opened up about purpose, gratitude, and what keeps her moving forward.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;For them to say it&#8217;s the Age of Possibility\u2014maybe it means something different than it does to a lot of women who think, &#8216;Are there any possibilities left for me?'&#8221; Gifford said. &#8220;They have a sense of despair\u2026 a little sense of, &#8216;What am I here for anymore?'&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>But that&#8217;s not how she sees it.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve always had purpose in my life,&#8221; she continued. &#8220;I&#8217;ve tried to be a believer in Almighty God, and if I wake up every morning\u2014that means I&#8217;ve got a pulse. That means He&#8217;s got a purpose for me. And that&#8217;s what I try to do: listen to His voice, figure out what that purpose is, and go about it holding His hand. And not getting ahead of Him because I can&#8217;t do it without Him.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I can&#8217;t breathe without Him,&#8221; she added. &#8220;And never had a day in my life when I thought I could.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Gifford, who describes herself as &#8220;steadfast,&#8221; said she is grateful she came to faith early in life. &#8220;I don&#8217;t know what I would have turned out to be in Hollywood if I hadn&#8217;t been rooted in my faith. Right, wrong, immoral, moral\u2014it saved me from a lot of despair.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>For Gifford, every new decade has brought opportunity, not loss. &#8220;When I turned 50, I still had little kids. I was still working with Regis,&#8221; she shared. &#8220;Even at 60, I was working with Regis. And then I turned 71 this past year. I know it&#8217;s hard to believe.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Though she jokes about aging, she&#8217;s as busy as ever\u2014with a new book on the way, three movies in the works that she&#8217;s writing and producing with her son, and two new grandchildren arriving soon. &#8220;I will have five under the age of three in three years,&#8221; she laughed.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If you live in the past, you&#8217;re going to die there,&#8221; she said. &#8220;If you just concentrate on what you&#8217;ve lost in your life, you&#8217;re going to miss out on what you still have. And God wants you to be grateful. Not enough grateful people in this world, you know? There just aren&#8217;t.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Gratitude and hard work have been a defining theme throughout Gifford&#8217;s career, which spans decades in television, music, theater, and publishing. Though she first gained attention in the late &#8217;70s on <em>Hee Haw Honeys<\/em>, it was her 15-year run on <em>Live with Regis and Kathie Lee<\/em> that made her a household name.<\/p>\n<p>She later co-hosted the <em>Today<\/em> show alongside Hoda Kotb for 11 years, winning a Daytime Emmy Award in 2019 before stepping away in 2020. Gifford is also an accomplished playwright, singer-songwriter, and bestselling author, with five musicals and numerous books to her name\u2014including the faith-focused <em>The God of the Way<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Despite her success, Gifford credits her work ethic and attitude more than her talent. &#8220;There are a lot of people who feel entitled. I was never entitled to anything,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I was never the prettiest girl that got the job. I was never the best singer, I was never the best dancer, I was never the best anything\u2014but I was the best worker. And I had the best attitude. I was a producer&#8217;s dream.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>That same positive outlook helped fuel her long relationship with QVC, which began years ago when she launched a skin cream line on the network. &#8220;We sold $5 million worth of it in five minutes,&#8221; she recalled. &#8220;I went, &#8216;Oh.'&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Though she hasn&#8217;t always returned to the airwaves in the middle of the night for product launches, Gifford said her appreciation for the company has never wavered. &#8220;They&#8217;re an amazing organization\u2014technically, they&#8217;re superb\u2014and nice, nice, nice people. And you know me, I don&#8217;t hang out with mean ones. I do not do it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>For Kathie Lee Gifford, life isn&#8217;t slowing down\u2014it&#8217;s just getting better. And through every season, she keeps walking in step with the One who&#8217;s guided her path from the very beginning.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If I&#8217;ve got a pulse,&#8221; she says, &#8220;then God&#8217;s still got a purpose.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At 71, Kathie Lee Gifford is thriving\u2014and she says the secret is her unwavering faith in God. The beloved former Live with Regis and Kathie Lee co-host recently spoke with Fox News Digital at QVC&#8217;s TikTok Super Brand Day, where she reflected on what it means to embrace life in her 70s. Serving as a&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":516,"featured_media":44828,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-television"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Kathie Lee Gifford Says Faith is Her Secret to Thriving in Her 70s: &#039;I Can&#039;t Breathe Without Him&#039;<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"At 71, Kathie Lee Gifford says her purpose comes from God: \u201cIf I\u2019ve got a pulse, then He\u2019s still got a purpose.\u201d Faith keeps her thriving.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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