Kathie Lee Gifford Lands Back In The Hospital After Hip Replacement Surgery With A Fractured Pelvis: “Unbelievably Painful”

Former Today host Kathie Lee Gifford was hospitalized for over a week after suffering a pelvis fracture.

Gifford explained to People that she recently “tripped” and fractured her pelvis in two places, soon after recovering from hip replacement surgery in June. The former television personality claimed she had “weakened” her body by carrying “300 books by myself” at a book signing in Nashville.

“It didn’t take much, because I was weak in that spot,” Gifford said. “And the next thing you know, I am back in the hospital with a fractured pelvis, the front and the back. That’s more painful than anything I went through with the hip. The pelvis is unbelievably painful. But anyway, here I am.”

Gifford said it was a “humbling experience.”

“You think you know your body and the next thing you know, your body changes when you get older,” she said. “And as much as I don’t wanna think about it, I am.”

She added that she chose to stay in the hospital as she recovered from the pelvis injury because she doesn’t “trust” herself.

The former NBC star recently underwent hip replacement surgery after a doctor advised her that her “hips [were] down to the nubs” due to her active lifestyle.

She recalled that her doctor told her, “You climbed mountains, you made movies, you got on stages. You never took off your high heels, and you kept going and that’s why you’re going through what you’re going through.”

After her hip replacement surgery, Gifford admitted to People that she was struggling to take time off as she recovered.

“I walked, I climbed, I walked, and my doctor said, ‘Kathie, no. You have got to realize that this is serious,’” she said. “And I was off my walker in two days. I was off all my medications in three days, and then I did too much. I just did too much because that’s who I am.” 

But Gifford is choosing to look on the bright side of things.

“It’s summer for everybody but me,” Gifford says. “But it’s OK. I’m going to get out to my little farm one of these days and stick my feet in my salt pool. The Lord is telling me it’s time to slow down. I’ve been running my whole life. The Lord is telling me, ‘You’ve planted a gazillion roses. Try smelling them.’ “

Gifford has led a long career in television, film and music. She famously co-hosted Live! with Regis Philbin from 1985 to 2000 before turning to NBC’s fourth hour of Today with Hoda Kotb until she eventually retired from television in 2019.

Since retiring, she’s returned to acting with roles in The Other Two, Then Came You, and The Baxters. And she recently published a new book: Herod and Mary: The True Story of the Tyrant King and the Mother of the Risen Savior.