Kathie Lee Gifford's First Marriage To Paul Johnson Was Drastically Different Than Her Relationship

Highlights

In Kathie Lee Gifford's memoir, she revealed her difficult first marriage.
Gifford found true love with Frank Gifford.
The couple weathered a miscarriage and Frank's infidelity.

Since the 1980s, the show now known as Live with Kelly and Mark has been a television mainstay. During that time, there have been many co-hosts that have come and gone with fans becoming fascinated by them.

In recent years, fans have wondered if Kelly Ripa's husband was jealous of Ryan Secrest and if she and Mark Consuelos will go the distance as co-hosts. Years ago, older fans were interested in Regis Philbin and David Letterman's rumored feud and the truth about Kathie Lee Gifford's two husbands.

Who Was Kathie Lee Gifford's First Husband?

Throughout most of Kathie Lee Gifford's time in the public eye, the TV host has painted a rosy picture of her personal life. Always one to lavish praise on her two children she clearly adores, Gifford typically seems to focus on the great aspects of her life.

Since Gifford seems to pride herself on praising the good parts of her life, it is remarkable when she reflects on what she has been through. In 2020, Gifford released her memoir "It's Never Too Late" and many fans were surprised to read just how bad things have been for Gifford at times.

While Gifford has never hidden from the realities of her first marriage, it was striking to see what Gifford wrote about it in black and white. According to Gifford's memoir, her marriage to Paul Johnson was extremely difficult for her.

After Gifford and Johnson met when they were students at Oral Roberts University, they tied the knot in 1976. As Gifford wrote in her memoir, she was excited to build a life with Johnson, but her first husband wanted very little to do with her.

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“I was excited about starting a life with someone, but he didn’t feel the same way,” she says. “I felt humiliated sleeping in my guestroom. It was so damaging to me on so many levels, damaging for me emotionally as a woman to be rejected after saving myself all those years,”

Anyone could understand how feeling completely rejected by someone who is supposed to love you would be deflating. However, Gifford's situation was made even more difficult because her personal religious beliefs also came into play.

“And then it was so disappointing on a spiritual level, because I had to ask the Lord, ‘How did I get this so wrong anyway?’ I don't even like to call him my husband because he wasn't in the truest sense of the word.”

Left feeling completely alone, Gifford was struggling to figure out her place in the world. However, due to Gifford's firmly held beliefs, she stuck it out in her first marriage for six years.

Shockingly enough, Gifford's life only changed in 1982 when her marriage ended because her husband left her. On the bright side, in Gifford's memoir, she wrote about how happy she was to be able to leave her first husband in the past.

“I was relieved. I realized, you know what, we can make all the vows we want in life, but if both people don't want the same thing, it's not going to work out. And I was very hopeful that one day I would find a real love.”

What Was Kathie Lee Gifford's Marriage To Frank Gifford Like?

After Kathie Lee Gifford's first marriage ended, a new and exciting stage in her life began. When Gifford was co-hosting Good Morning America during the early 80s, her life changed forever when she met a Pro Football Hall of Famer and sports commentator.

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After completely forgetting Martin Short's wife had passed away during an interview, Kathie Lee Gifford had to apologize after asking Short about her.

In 2020, Gifford took part in an interview for Peacock's Holiday Steals and Deals with Jill Martin. During the resulting conversation, Gifford spoke about the moment that she met the man who would seemingly become the love of her life, Frank Gifford.

"I met Frank Gifford because it was 4 o'clock in the morning at Good Morning America, walking down one of the hallways and I looked over at somebody in the dressing room — the best set of buns I've ever seen in my life — just leaned over a sink putting in contact lenses."

At that moment, staring at her future husband, the seemingly never-shy Gifford quickly began a conversation with him. "I had just had a precursor to Lasik done on my eyes months before and I yelled out, 'Have I got an operation for you!'To which the body that the buns belonged to retorted, 'Yeah, with the fool on either end.'"

As Gifford went on to state, she believes that she and Frank Gifford were meant to become a huge part of each other's lives. Gifford also explained that if she finds love again, she wants to have an organic experience like that.

"Years later, after 30 years of marriage that's what's called a God wink, that's when the divine and the human intersect. I was supposed to be in that hallway that day, he was supposed to be in that room putting in contact lenses. We were supposed to meet and I'd rather anything that happens in the rest of my life to be organic and authentic that way too."

Throughout Gifford and Frank Gifford's decades of marriage, both of them spoke about how much they adored each other. However, even though the couple mostly seemed to have great times, they went through some major difficulties too.

As Kathie-Lee Gifford has revealed in the past, one of the hardest things the couple went through was a miscarriage. Thankfully, they were there for each other as they suffered that profound loss that couples typically go through alone.

However, the couple weathered their biggest test after it was publicly revealed that Frank Gifford cheated on his wife. In 1997, a tabloid called Globe paid a woman to get involved with Frank Gifford and provide proof to the publisher that he'd been unfaithful.

Even the National Enquirer's editor Steve Coz called The Globe's deplorable behavior out. 'There's a difference between reporting the news and creating the news. It's one thing to catch a celebrity cheating and another to induce or entrap them. Without the Globe, there would be no story here. I'm in the tabloid industry, and this is way over the top. It's downright cruel.'

No matter what led to Frank Gifford's conduct, the fact that he cheated on Gifford remained the same. The incident underlined another way Gifford's two marriages were different. Gifford's first marriage failed because her first husband didn't want intimacy. As Gifford explained in her aforementioned memoir, her second marriage almost ended because her second husband wanted too much intimacy.

“It was absolutely devastating. Nobody knows what I went through. You feel hopeless and you don’t want to live anymore.” Gifford continued, “If this had been chronic behavior from Frank, I would have divorced him like that. After what I'd been through with my first marriage, then to be with a chronically unfaithful husband, no. Nothing in the Bible says we have to stay with that.”

As Gifford went on to explain, a marriage counselor saved the couple by encouraging her to try to forgive. “That guy I adored and that’s why we were able to turn it around. It was the right thing for my life to forgive my husband. And then work at forgetting.”

Gifford continued, “He was a very good, dear, gentle, generous man. So many things about him that I valued as my friend, I continued to value in him as my husband and the father of my children. But the person you loved the most in your life is the person that can hurt you the most.” Ultimately the couple stayed together until Frank Gifford's passing in 2015.