She said the incident happened when she overextended herself while moving books for a book signing event in Nashville. The next day, when she went to answer the door for her friends, she simply tripped.

“It didn’t take much, because I was weak in that spot,” Gifford said of her fall. “The next thing you know, I am back in the hospital with a fractured pelvis, the front and the back. That’s more painful than anything I went through with the hip. The pelvis is unbelievably painful.”

“You think you know your body and the next thing you know, your body changes when you get older,” the former anchor for the Today show said. “As much as I don’t wanna think about it, I am.”

Earlier this month, Gifford return to her old haunt at the Today show and had a sit down with 59-year-old Hoda Kotb. She said in the interview that she was currently recovering from her hip replacement surgery as she promoted her new novel, Herod and Mary: The True Story of the Tyrant King and the Mother of the Risen Savior.

She revealed that before her surgery, Gifford was in “agonizing pain” and had “one of the worst hips” her doctor had ever seen. She said she had had her hip replacement surgery a month ago.

“I had been in such agonizing pain,” Gifford said, noting that her physical discomfort “was terrible” before she had had her surgery.

“My doctor finished the surgery, came in to tell me it went beautifully and then said, ‘Kathie, how have you been existing all this time?’” she recalled. “He said, ‘It’s one of the worst hips I’ve ever seen.’”

Her lifestyle might have been the culprit behind her hip issues.

“You’re always on the go,” Kotb said to Gifford. The two of them had co-hosted Today together for a span of 11 years before Gifford retired and relocated in 2019 to Nashville. “I never once saw you stop, even if you were in the car. I remember, you’d be writing notes. You’re always- your brain, your body is always working.”

In April this year, Gifford gave an interview to Rachel Smith where she talked about her decision to leave two of TV’s most popular morning shows: Today and Live! With Regis and Kathie Lee.

“Part of it is just gut instinct, you know? I’ve been in this business 60 years now, so I’ve had a lot of failures and a lot of successes — successes beyond my wildest dreams,” she said. “You’re sitting right now under four Emmys I never dreamed I’d receive. I’m grateful for them but, the older I get, the less that matters as well.”

She went on, “I look at [my Emmys] and I’m grateful, thank you, Lord. But my trophies are the people that I’ve touched in life, the people [in] both of those places. I’ve worked 15 years with Regis, and 11 years with Hoda. The trophies we gather in life that truly matter are human, you know.”