Kathie Lee Gifford has already gone back on her pact not to drink for the month of January. Less than a week after she and Hoda Kotb swore off the sauce on air, Gifford was seen at Michael’s quaffing chardonnay right in front of her NBC colleagues.
The fourth-hour hosts of “Today” announced on Jan. 7 that they’d give up drinking for a month. But spies say that just nine days later, Gifford was off the wagon and indulging at a lunch she threw for 20 guests to celebrate Kotb’s latest book.
The no-drinking challenge was posed by Ladies’ Home Journal in exchange for a cover story, and Kotb did hedge a bit when she and Gifford took the plunge by whispering “on the air” as they announced the 30-day booze break.
Still, observers at Michael’s were surprised that the pair couldn’t hold out a bit longer. “People couldn’t believe it,” said a regular at the media haunt. “Kathie Lee was having chardonnay in front of all the people from ‘Today,’ including [executive producer] Don Nash, after she’d just said she wasn’t drinking for a month.”
Gifford’s and Kotb’s legendary love of daytime drinking on “Today” has been spoofed on “SNL” by Kristen Wiig and is a constant source of amusement for “The Soup” host Joel McHale.
“A lot of people are doing this,” Gifford said on air of the resolution. “It’s a new year, and they’re all trying to cut back in whatever ways they can.”
“Cheers to the end,” Kotb said. But the end was pretty near, it seems.
Kotb told Jimmy Fallon last week: “It’s the worst decision we have ever made. It’s not as fun . . . Our guests are used to having a little beverage. It’s a little weird.”
Also at the lunch for Kotb’s book, “Ten Years Later: Six People Who Faced Adversity and Transformed Their Lives,” were Savannah Guthrie, Meredith Vieira and Al “Soiled Slacks” Roker.
“You caught me,” Gifford told us through a rep. “Yes, I most certainly was [drinking wine]. You can’t celebrate a book launch without it. But I commend The Post on their investigative reporting.”