They put you on a game show and you la la out a tune.
It’s swell. You sell!
They put you in commercials and you promise folks the moon.
It’s swell. You sell!
—“YOU SELL” BY KATHIE LEE GIFFORD
I hate the phrase reinvent yourself. And I’m not fond of the word retire. I prefer re-fire. For how can I reinvent myself when I never invented myself to begin with? God created me, and He created you too. Acts 17 says, “in him we live and move and have our being” (v. 28).
So when I left Live with Regis and Kathie Lee, I didn’t retire. I moved on to the next stage of my life. I concentrated on other interests. I recorded two CDs, Heart of a Woman for Universal Records and Born for You on my own label, On the Lamb Records. The first one flopped and the second one didn’t. That’s the yin and yang and ebb and flow of the business.
I continued my work in theater and opened the musical Under the Bridge at the Zipper Theatre in 2005. I have a distinct memory of watching Rosie O’Donnell and Donald and Melania Trump seated next to each other in the front row. Rosie and Donald were sharing M&M’s, chatting, and getting along just fine. Ah, the good old days!
I first met Donald Trump when I arrived in New York City in June 1982 to begin work on Good Morning America. He was already a fixture in New York society and a powerhouse mover and shaker in business. He was bigger than life and often the center of both personal and professional scandal. Some people adored him; some people loathed him. Some things never change.
But here’s the thing I learned: never believe what you hear or read about someone. The media is generated by an insatiable lust for power, prestige, and most importantly, money.
The first real professional song I ever wrote, called “You Sell,” was a commentary on this theme. I performed it at Rainbow and Stars at the top of Rockefeller Center for two weeks in my cabaret act and also in my monologue when I hosted Late Night with David Letterman.
They put you on a game show and you la la out a tune.
It’s swell. You sell!
They put you in commercials and you promise folks the moon.
It’s swell. You sell!
They put you next to Regis and you talk about your life.
You fight so much together people think that you’re his wife.
It’s swell. You sell!
They put you on the cover and say you’re cryin’ the blues.
It sells! It sells!
They say you’re leaving Regis, that’s supposed to be news?
It sells! It sells!
They put you on the cover and say your marriage is over!
They put you on the cover and say your husband’s a rover!
They put you on the cover, say your kid is a brat!
You once were anorexic, but now you’re getting fat!
They put you on the cover and say, “She’s cryin’ again,”
And the source, of course, is always a “close personal friend.”
The next day you’re battling with Rosie and pills.
The next day you’re going broke because of all the bills.
But that’s because of all the plastic surgery you’ve had.
And now you’re close to suicide because it turned out bad.
How do I stay alive with all those cancer scares?
How do I keep on smiling when greeted by those stares?
How do I manage sanity while facing all those lies?
How do I manage motherhood and keep those awesome thighs?
Who cares? Who cares?
There must be something missing from somebody’s life
When they’d rather read about the plight of Frank Gifford’s wife.
Is this really what’s become of what used to be news?
Perhaps the thing they’re missing is a Carnival cruise.
Hey, they put that fire out very fast!
But why is everybody always picking on me?
Please tell! Please tell!
Why am I the butt of all those jokes on TV?
It’s hell! It’s hell!
I really shouldn’t take it so personally.
To them I’m not a person but a personality.
BAND:
You sell!
Yeah, swell.
The critics and the pundits ponder endlessly
When, oh God, please when will we be rid of Kathie Lee?
I wish they had the answer, if they only had a clue.
I nearly died of shock from Broadway when I got a good review.
(Actually, it wasn’t good, it was an absolute rave!)
But it’ll never happen again, my future is secure.
I’ll keep on filling pages that smell faintly of manure.
BAND:
It smells!
Shh! It sells!
They’ll all be filled with jealousy and misery and vice
’Cause they can deal with any news except the kind that’s nice!
You know in all sincerity
I treat it with hilarity.
It helps me keep my sanity,
Maintain my famous vanity.
I’ve learned to laugh at critics and to scoff at all the jests.
Yes, the press is tough, the paparazzi are just pests.
But you people have been great to me.
You’re the reason that I stay.
With a lot of help from heaven
And a lot of chardonnay.
BAND:
She drinks!
Not all day!
They take your picture when you’re simply scratchin’ your eye,
Then print “there she goes again startin’ to cry,”
When in fact you’re really laughing ’cause you know it isn’t true.
They’re writing about someone, but that someone isn’t you.
If I believed the crap I read,
How I’m a woman filled with greed
Who really is a heartless jerk,
Who loves to put small kids to work,
The hissy fits,
The phony bits,
The phony bitch with phony tits,
Who slept her way up to the top,
And talks and talks and just won’t stop
I’d hate me too!
I loved watching the audiences’ reaction to the words as they recognized the truth in them. The tabloids wrote all kinds of garbage about me because, for some inexplicable reason, I sold millions of dollars of magazines and newspapers for them.
The tabloids only exist because there’s a huge, voracious appetite in our culture to consume garbage. We put trash in our bodies every day in the form of junk food. We also put trash into our minds when we purchase salacious and unsubstantiated gossip. It doesn’t really matter if any of it is true or not; all that matters is that it sells. And it will sell until the next person arrives on the scene and it starts all over again under a new name.
If I hadn’t been able to hold on to my own truth through all the viciousness of those years, I’d be in the Betty Ford Center, or in prison, or dead. But I didn’t let the headlines define me. I battled every day to keep reminding myself that only God could do that. And every day I clung for dear life to what His Word said about me.
I have known many of the people who have been swept up in the headlines over the last four decades. Many I consider friends; others are colleagues. It has pained me to watch how the lies have damaged some of their reputations and livelihoods. In cases when I knew the accusations to be true, I was pleased to see them brought to justice.
Many innocent people have been destroyed, and too many truly guilty people are still walking around freely, continuing to use their power to abuse others. It’s infuriating, isn’t it? I understand why so many scream at their radios and TVs, lashing out at all the insanity.
There is something very basic and primal in us that longs for justice. But that, too, has been perverted in our culture. Because if we don’t care about justice for all, we don’t really care about it at all, do we?
My point is this: I continue to believe in the truth about the people I have known personally and privately. And that truth has rarely been what I heard or read anywhere else. It’s never too late to pause to consider whether some salacious piece of “news” might not actually be true at all.