Kathie Lee Gifford took her audience to church after her colleague Matt Lauer was fired from NBC due to sexual misconduct allegations.
“I don’t feel that Matt has betrayed us in any way at all, but when I found out that my husband had betrayed me, you question your own judgment,” Gifford said on Wednesday’s episode of Kathie Lee and Hoda. “You say, ‘Was everything a lie?’ And I think we have to fight against that, very much fight against that. That the man we know and adored was the man we loved and adored and continue to. I texted [Lauer] this morning and I said, ‘I adore you.'”
Gifford’s husband, Frank, had an affair during the 1990s, but the couple reconciled and rebuilt their relationship on the Lord.
“No person is perfect in this world,” she said. “Nobody is. We’ve all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, is what Scripture says. And what we need now is forgiveness, and we need mercy for one another. We don’t need taunts, and we don’t need ugliness. We have enough of that in the world. I send out my love right now to the person, whoever it is, that came forward. May God heal that person. I send it to Matt, and his children and his wife—may God bless that family and heal. I’m sorry, Hoda, but in my long life, the only thing I’ve ever been sure of is that only God can heal it. And there’s no bad time to reach out for His help.”
Fellow journalist Garrison Keillor was fired today for inappropriate behavior, just hours after news broke about Lauer. The two are just the latest names to be added to the list of men who allegedly sexually harassed or behaved inappropriately around women.
Gifford continued to point her audience members toward Christ in the wake of headlines announcing prominent men’s indiscretions.
“This is a good way to think of it, too,” she added. “There was a man—a wonderful, wonderful man who was an adviser to me and Frank through our lifetime—and I had my eyes just on me for a long time, and I was upset and hurt, which you would normally be, like I’m sure Matt’s family is. And he said, ‘Kathie, if you can’t forgive your husband,’—and this is important, you guys—’forgive your children’s father.’ Same person. Same person, but that’s the one you love. That’s the one you believe in. We are all so broken. We need somebody to put us back together. And it’s possible, it’s so possible. I’m living proof of it. Didn’t mean to go to church, but that’s where we needed to go today.”
