Kathie Lee Gifford is moving down south.
As her time on the Today show dwindles, the TV personality is opening up about the next steps in both her personal and professional lives. The 65-year-old tells People that she has already purchased a house in Nashville after having had resided in Greenwich, Connecticut, for many years. Gifford says that there’s just something about Nashville that brings out the music in her.
“Even if you’re just having a dinner party there, invariably people end up at your piano or taking your guitar off the wall, and next thing you know, you’ve written a song and you’re in the studio the next week doing a demo.”
Kathie Lee has already written a few musicals, and definitely has plans to follow her passion in music — which is apparently part of the reason that she’s moving to Nashville.
“The work that I want to do isn’t here anymore,” she said of her stint on Today . “I am an artist, I’m an actress, I’m a writer, I’m a songwriter, a director now. That’s the stuff that feeds my soul and I know that I’m running out of time to do those things.”
Kathie Lee originally shared with the publication that she thought she would only be on the Today show — alongside Hoda Kotb — for a year. However, that one year turned into 11 years, and now she thinks that it’s just a good time to exit — especially since so much has happened to her over the past few years.
Earlier this week, The Inquisitr shared that Kathie Lee is still reeling over the loss of her late husband, Frank Gifford. The couple was married for 29 years before Frank passed away from chronic traumatic encephalopathy in 2015. Then, in 2017, Kathie Lee lost her beloved mother, Joan Epstein, at the age of 87.
Now, Gifford is an empty nester. Her daughter, Cassidy, and son, Cody, are no longer living at home — and it’s been a lot for the TV personality to handle.
“You battle different things as you get older, especially as a widow, you battle the loneliness when you lose a spouse,” she shared. “It dawned on me the other day, I’m a widow, I’m an orphan, because my mother also passed, and I’m an empty nester all at the same time.”
Kathie Lee says that she thinks that a fresh start is the best thing for her, and that the changes she is making are feeding her soul. She says if she gets complacent, despair and loneliness set in — and “can be crippling” — something which she doesn’t want happening.
It will be exciting to see what else the future has in store for the former talk show host.
