Kathie Lee Gifford Says Jenna Bush Hager ‘Wanted Her Job So Badly’ in Return to ‘Today’

Regrets? Kathie Lee Gifford returned to the fourth hour of NBC's Today on Tuesday, March 26, for the first time after departing as Hoda Kotb's cohost in 2019 and joked about how Jenna Bush Hager replaced her.

Hoda, ?59 asked her old pal, "What does it feel like coming back here?” Kathie Lee, 70, responded, “It feels good. It’s been five years.” She then turned to her replacement, telling Jenna, 42, "You wanted my job so badly!"

Kathie Lee made sure it was all good fun and that she didn't want to go back to sipping wine with Hoda at 10 a.m. each day. The former Live With Regis and Kathie Lee cohost then gave her reason for not wanting to return to talk TV.

“No. I have said so often, especially in the days when I was with Regis, we talk for 23 minutes straight without a note … no writers, anything. Back then, you weren’t editing yourself all the time. That’s the trouble with today, too, with humor. When you gotta think about what you’re gonna say, the fun goes out," she explained.

The Paris, France, native previously had a 15-year run with Regis Philbin on Live With Regis and Kathie Lee from 1985 to 2000, becoming one of the most familiar faces on morning TV. After stepping down, she was replaced by then-All My Children star Kelly Ripa, who remains with the show today. Regis retired in 2011 and died in July 2020 at the age of 88.

Kathie Lee and her daughter, Cassidy Gifford, appeared on the show to promote their new Prime Video series The Baxters. Wanting to try new projects was the reason the TV icon announced her departure from Today in December 2018, after almost 11 years on the show.

"Hoda's known it for a long, long time. All these other projects have been bubbling up in me and [are] so exciting — movies and music and so many wonderful things. I need the time for them to do them properly," Kathie Lee said at the time. NBC announced in February 2019 that Jenna would be taking over the position, starting the job full-time one day after Kathie Lee's final show on April 7, 2019.

While her mom only appears in three episodes of The Baxters, Cassidy is starring in 28 of the 34 first season episodes. The show is described on IMDb as, "An ensemble family drama based on the bestselling novels from Karen Kingsbury, that follows Elizabeth and John Baxter, and their adult children, as they navigate life's highs and lows, both with and without God."