Kathie Lee Gifford confirms her relationship 'ended recently': 'It's always hard'

Kathie Lee Gifford is single.

In an April 24 interview with People, the former TODAY co-host said she's no longer seeing her mystery man.

“My new mantra was going to be my joy is non-negotiable. I’ll negotiate time. I’ll negotiate money with you. But my joy, I can’t,” she explained of her new mantra she's going to live by. “I was in a relationship for several years that just ended recently. And you know, it’s always hard because when you love someone, you love someone deeply. It’s something you miss when it doesn’t last.”

Kathie Lee noted that she learned a lot from her last relationship and it's given her a new lease on life.

“You aren’t supposed to marry everyone you fall in love with. And I don’t want to love easily,” she said. “I’ve been loved three times in my entire life. It’s the people who have meant something deep and powerful in your life that are the hardest things to get over.”

Kathie Lee's comments come after she told “Entertainment Tonight,” that she’s “not saying a word” about her relationship status.

“You don’t know what’s going on in my personal life,” she said, after interviewer Rachel Smith referred to her as single in their April 24 interview. “You don’t know. Nobody does.”

She also said that if she ever does end up getting married again, the world wouldn’t hear about it until much later.

“I’m so convinced that if the Lord brings another beautiful man into my life, I am not going to talk about it,” she said. “We’ll probably get married privately and tell the world a year later so that nobody’s opinion matters.”

Kathie Lee did confirm she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, holding up her left hand and joking that it was “as naked as a left hand could be.”

She also quashed rumors that she could be the first “Golden Bachelorette.”

“I’m not getting in the hot tub with anybody. And I don’t believe that I could, in a matter of weeks, fall madly in love with somebody,” she said. “For me, it would never work that way.”

“I vote for Hoda!” she said about her former fourth hour co-host, Hoda Kotb.

Kathie Lee was married to Frank Gifford from 1986 until his death in 2015. She and the former New York Giants player welcomed two children together: Cassidy, 30, and Cody, 34.

Kathie Lee opened up about slowly beginning to date again in 2019 during a visit to TODAY with Hoda & Jenna.

“It’s surreal,” she said. “You know, it’s surreal. ‘Cause the world’s changed so much.”

In late 2021, she opened up a little bit about the current status of her love life during another chat with Hoda and Jenna.

“I have a very sweet man in my life,” she said. “He’s good for me, and I’m good for him.

“And that’s all that I’ll say about it, because there’s nothing else to talk about,” she added.

In August 2022, she once again hinted that she was in a relationship, without sharing any details.

“I have someone very special in my life,” she told People. “I’ve discovered that by not talking about it, it stays special.”

This article was originally published on TODAY.com