Kathie Lee Gifford reveals why she chose to stay with her husband when he had an affair
Kathie Lee Gifford refused to be "angry, unhappy, and miserable" when she found out her husband was having an affair.
The 70-year-old TV star did not split from late footballer player Frank - with whom she has Cody, 34, and 30-year-old Cassidy - when she discovered that he had been unfaithful and instead stayed with him until his death in 2015 but admitted her faith had been "test" throughout the ordeal.
She told 'Entertainment Tonight': "My faith was definitely tested the most during the whole year dealing with Frank’s infidelity because I thought that I had finally found my soulmate.
"I could have let the seed germinate but I don't want to be that person, that bitter, angry, unhappy, miserable human being 'cause you know what you end up doing? You end up making everybody around you every bit as miserable. I have always felt from my earliest youth that I had the choice every day of my life to be a blessing or a burden and I want to be a blessing."
The former 'Today' host also noted that her decision to stay with Frank- who died in 2015 at the age of 84 - was a "choice" and that she had already learned to "practice forgiveness" prior to their wedding because she had been in a similar situation beforehand with her first husband Paul Johnson.
She said: "I'd been married before to a man who betrayed me deeply and I forgave him right away. You don't hold on, don't wait to forgive… you're only hurting yourself. Immediately forgive because love cannot live where hate does."
"It's a cancer in your soul and I don't want that. I don't want it for me, I don't want it for anyone I love. I want people to be blessed and we all make our choices.
"We all make our choices -- he [Frank] made a different one than I did and we all live with them. But I can live with the choices I have made if I have truly experienced a deep and abiding forgiveness of that person."