Kathie Lee Gifford reflects on ending infamous feud with Howard Stern

Kathie Lee Gifford is crediting divine intervention with helping her to put an end to her 30-year-long feud with Howard Stern. 

The former Live! host, 70, recalled the time when God reached out and encouraged her to end the bad blood between her and Stern, also 70, in a recent Fox News interview. At the time, Gifford said that Stern was visiting the Today show studios in order to announce that he would be joining the judging panel on America’s Got Talent. 

“The Lord, again, said, ‘Kathie, go down and say hello to him,’” she shared, noting that she was told by the higher power to “wish him well” on the show. “So I got up out of my hair and makeup place — and those girls have been told don’t let Kathie go anywhere near the studio, because Howard Stern’s coming. I could care less. I go downstairs, they go, ‘Where are you going?’ I said, ‘I’m going to go say hello to Howard.’”

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Gifford was eventually able to find the “very, very tall” Stern in the studio. “I just said, ‘Hey. Kathie Lee. I thought it was about time we said hello.’ And I said, ‘I wanna wish you all the best with the new show,’” she said. “And I got up, I went back, sat down in the makeup room, and they said, ‘Why’d you do that?’ I said, ‘God told me to.’”

The moment must’ve had a big effect on Stern, because Gifford explained that he “called me later that day” to quash the rivalry between them for good.

“I was getting on a plane to go out for my son’s graduation from USC and he had called me and he left a voicemail and he said — I can’t even use the language that he used. It was a lot of F words,” she said, before doing her best Stern impression. “But he was basically saying, ‘I can’t believe how nice you were to me. I’ve been so [muffled] to you, and you were so nice and I just need to apologize to you. Please call me.’”

The only problem? The number that Stern used had “no caller ID” listed, so Gifford had no way of calling him back. In the end, Stern rang her for a second time later that evening. 

“My husband and my son did not want me to take that call,” she recalled. “He was horrible to me and horrendous to my entire family for 30 years. I’d never met the man, never, until that day, [or] listened to his show. I’d hear that he’d say certain things about me, I’d go, ‘Why?! I don’t even know the man.’”

Gifford said that Stern “did ask me to forgive him” during their eventual conversation. In response, she told him, “I’m really happy for you that you are asking for forgiveness, because anytime we’ve hurt somebody in their life, it’s important to ask for forgiveness. But I just want you to know that I forgave you 30 years ago.”

Stern was surprised by her revelation — and even more flummoxed when she personally invited him over to attend a family dinner afterward. “He goes, ‘You’d have me at your house?’ I said, ‘Of course!’” She continued, “He’s a very odd duck, but then I saw him a couple of times over at Sirius and we were fine.”

For Gifford, forgiving Stern is just another step in practicing what she preaches. “Once you start praying for people, you can’t hate them. Love cannot live where hate does,” she said. “And it’s a very simple thing. You have to grow in it. As you grow in your faith, you learn, ‘I got to pray for that person right now. What they just said was so horrible.’ Just pray! Ask God to heal them. Because hurt people hurt people. It’s the truth.”