Kelly Ripa, 52, has broken her silence regarding her fellow television host Kathie Lee Gifford‘s disapproval of her new memoir, Live Wire: Long-Winded Short Stories, during an appearance on the Oct. 18 episode of the Not Skinny But Not Fat podcast. “It’s really hard to sell a book, right? And this is like, week three of the book, right? And I mean, honestly, I’m not gonna lie, I was not reading any headlines anywhere. And suddenly all of these headlines pop up and there’s all of this attention on my book,” she recalled. “So I am a person that tends to take a negative and turn it into a positive. And so my ultimate comment is, thank you.”
“It’s like really hard to get attention on a book that’s been out for a couple of weeks and now it’s week two, second week on The New York Times Best Sellers list,” the Live! With Kelly and Ryan host continued. “It’s like, thank you because I think that people that read the book will have a very different take on the book.”
The mother of three also noted that she thinks Kathie’s opinion of her writing will change if she decides to read it. “I think anybody that reads the book will have a completely different take,” Kelly explained.
On Oct. 10, Kathie, 69, said she wouldn’t be reading Live Wire: Long-Winded Short Stories due to Kelly’s claims of a power struggle on set with Regis Philbin, the beloved television host who died in July 2020 at the age of 88. Kelly hosted Live! With Regis and Kelly for 10 years after taking Kathie’s place in 2001. “I was very sorry to see the headlines,” Kathie host told Fox 5’s Rosanna Scotto during an interview. “You know, you never know what’s true and what’s not true. I went, ‘I hope this isn’t true. I just hope it isn’t.’ ‘Cause what’s the point? I don’t get it. I don’t get it.”
She later added, “I’m not gonna read the book. I haven’t read it. I don’t even know if it’s out yet.” She then praised Regis and gushed about their close, trusting bond as coworkers. “I just know what Regis was to me, Rosanna,” she noted. “He was 15 years the best partner I could ever have professionally. But he was my friend. We were dear friends and after I left the show … for the next 20 years we became better friends. Dearer friends.”
Kelly mentioned that she knew she would be subject to criticism by writing the book during her Not Skinny But Not Fat appearance and recalled questioning whether or not she should reveal her feelings about her relationship with Regis. “And then I write this entire chapter, [which] is about correcting the record in real-time. Do you do it? Should one do it? Theoretically, should a person correct the record in real-time or should they not even comment on it?” she pondered out loud. “Because here’s the thing, it’s like I talked to the people who read the book. I knew writing a book was going to open me up to all sorts of criticism, right? But people who read the book have a very different take on those chapters because they read the book.” It appears Kelly is taking any backlash with a grain of salt.
“You don’t have to read every book. Nobody has to read every book on Earth,” she continued with a positive outlook on her memoir. “The comments I’ve gotten about those chapters have been overwhelmingly positive and the people who read the book took away a lot of positivity from it.”
Kelly previously admitted to PEOPLE that writing about Regis was “the hardest chapter to write”. She explained, “I don’t want to feel like I’m slamming anyone or that I’m being disrespectful. But I also want people to know it was not a cakewalk. It took years to earn my place there and earn the things that are routinely given to the men I worked with. Including an office and a place to put my computer.”