Kathie Lee Gifford is opening up about Bill Cosby, saying he crossed the line when he once tried to kiss her.
Gifford told People in a new interview that she and Cosby were good friends when they worked together for two years — until he made a move on her one night.
“He tried to kiss me,” she said. “He was not the first man during a multi-decade career that came on to me.”
Gifford did not specify to People when the kiss was attempted.
But she’s spoken of the fumbled pass in the past, including while hosting the “Today” show in 2014, when she described the no-longer-funnyman as having made a move when they toured together during the 1970s.
Gifford had said then as well that Cosby backed off when she said no.
In September 2018, a Pennsylvania judge sentenced Cosby to three to 10 years in prison for drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand, a former Temple University employee, in his home more than a decade ago.
His conviction caused a reckoning in the #MeToo movement which also exposed disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, anchor Matt Lauer, among others, of sexually assaulting women.
Gifford recalled she was “surprised” by Cosby’s move but “didn’t feel panicked.”
“The one and only time that he did try to kiss me, I said, ‘No. Bill, you’re my friend.’ He goes, ‘You’re right. Good night,'” Gifford told the magazine. “So I found those accusations against him very painful, because that’s not the man I knew.”
Gifford added she will never understand why Cosby acted the way he did with his accusers.
“I didn’t doubt the women’s stories,” she told People. “I don’t know why he behaved the way he did with the other women, that’s their story to tell.”