Kathie Lee Griffin speaks against Kelly Ripa's Regis Philbin comments - USA TODAY

Kathie Lee Gifford is speaking highly of her relationship with Regis Philbin, weeks aft Kelly Ripa said she and her co-star's relationship "didn't truly exist."  

Gifford worked with Philbin connected "Live with Regis and Kathie Lee" from the precocious '80s to the crook of the millennium. The 69-year-old media property near the amusement with Philbin to enactment connected her singing and acting career; Ripa took implicit Gifford's spot successful 2001, turning the amusement into "Live! With Regis and Kelly." 

Regis retired from the amusement aft moving with Ripa for a decade, but successful 2017 helium sparked feud rumors aft saying Ripa was "very offended" erstwhile helium near and that the 2 didn't support successful touch. 

Ripa precocious acceptable the grounds consecutive astir her narration with Philbin portion promoting her recently released memoir "Live Wire." In a September interrogation the 52-year-old amusement big said feud rumors accusing her of abandoning Philbin were not true. 

'Live Wire': Kelly Ripa says relationship with Regis Philbin 'didn't truly exist'

"It was someway this mendacious communicative that I had abandoned idiosyncratic that I was precise adjacent to – that we were champion friends and I had abandoned him," Ripa told USA TODAY successful September. "And nary of that was true. We had a very professional, moving relationship."

Gifford said her narration with Philbin was "something wholly antithetic from that."

 "I was precise atrocious to spot the headlines" from Ripa's caller interviews, Gifford told New York City's Fox 5 Monday. "I'm not going to work the book, I haven't work it." 

She added that for 15 years Philbin was "the champion spouse a idiosyncratic could ever person professionally, but helium was my friend." 

More: 5 reasons wherefore Kathie Lee Gifford's caller memoir 'It's Never Too Late' volition animate you

Gifford said she saw Philbin 2 weeks earlier he died successful 2020 and that his wife, Joy Philbin, said Gifford's sojourn was the past clip she'd seen him laugh. 

"We were perfectly cleanable unneurotic for television. We ne'er had an argument. Not an unkind word in 15 years. That was my reality," she said. "In each the years I've known him I've ne'er seen him unkind to anyone." 

In her September interview, Ripa said telling her broadside of her narration with Philbin gave her "a glimmer of hope" successful getting escaped of the rumor as she was "very careful" penning astir it successful "Live Wire." 

"I did not recognize this request to vilify the pistillate always, and erstwhile it's a two-person discussion, wherefore isn't it a two-person discussion?" she asked. 

"I enjoyed listening to him archer his stories much than anyone. I loved that portion of the amusement due to the fact that it was not enactment astatine all. But to solely enactment the work of maintaining a relationship that didn't truly beryllium (on me) … It's conscionable a precise unusual communicative that I recovered myself successful that I couldn't look to get retired of," Ripa said.  

Contributing: Patrick Ryan