Kathie Lee Gifford Says Becoming a Grandmother Is a ‘Blessing’ After Husband Frank Gifford’s Death

It’s the beginning of a new era for Kathie Lee Gifford — she’s becoming a grandma! “I am over a blue or pink moon!” she exclusively gushes to Closer Weekly. “I don’t care which.” 

Kathie Lee was visiting with son Cody’s former nanny, Christine Gardner, a longtime family friend, when the couple surprised them with the big news. “Cody and [wife] Erika handed both of us something that was wrapped and asked that we please open at the same time,” the former Today host relates. “It was a two-sided frame, and mine read, ‘Can’t wait to meet you, Grandma,’ on one side, and on the other was a photo of Cody and Erika holding their ultrasound. It took a moment to crystallize to me that this was their baby, which meant that it was my baby, too. I freaked!” Erika is due with baby No. 1 in June.

The timing couldn’t be more perfect. In October, Kathie Lee, 68, turned over her longtime family home in Greenwich, Connecticut, to Cody, 31, and Erika, 28. Kathie Lee moved out of the estate where she and her late husband, Frank Gifford, raised Cody and his sister, Cassidy, 28, in 2019.

“It was the missing of my children in my beautiful, beautiful home that had once been so filled with laughter and music, and dogs barking, and smells of the grill going, and the seagulls,” she said of her decision to decamp to Nashville. 

It thrills her to think that next summer, her old home will echo with the sound of a baby’s laughter again. “I have long believed just by watching my children with other children and babies for years now that they are both made for parenthood,” she says, adding that they chose spouses who will also be great parents. 

It has been a very eventful period for Kathie Lee and her family. Daughter Cassidy wed Ben Wierda in June 2020, while Cody and Erika tied the knot in September of the same year. The new baby will be icing on Kathie Lee’s cake. “It isn’t about me at all,” she insists. “This is a blessing from God in His way and in His timing.”