Kathie Lee Gifford to Kate Gosselin: Get away from the cameras

Kathie Lee Gifford has advice for Kate Gosselin

Kathie Lee Gifford appeared on Larry King Live immediately following Kate Gosselin's interview with King, and she gave her two cents regarding the Gosselin marriage meltdown and the price of fame. Gifford is certainly no stranger to accusations of exploiting her children and being in the spotlight for her own marriage troubles. Here's a partial transcript of the interview:

KING: What's your reaction to Kate?

GIFFORD: You know, she was just on "The Today Show" a couple of weeks ago. And I was watching from the make-up room, like most people are watching from home, or something. And I didn't get a chance to meet her. It's another thing when you meet people in the flesh. They take on a whole different dimension.

KING: How do you think she's handling all of this?

GIFFORD: I think she's probably handling it as best as you can. I think it would be a lot easier for her to handle it if she had the luxury of being away from the cameras for a while.

KING: She seems to sort of like it.

GIFFORD: You know, everybody's different. I know for me, after the 15 years with Regis, when our family life was getting a little unwieldy and a little precarious, for our kids' sake, I left the show with Regis, and sort of just started a whole different life. That was important.

The spotlight is something that you can walk in and out of with particular ease if you're in this business. You know. But the microscope is a completely different thing. And the microscope burns everything in its way.

KING: How did you deal with public adversity? Or having -- you had some bad things.

GIFFORD: We had some tough stuff. Ever time I was on this show talking. You were my therapist. I'd come on here. You know what? They didn't know anywhere near as much as what people know about the Gosselin family, because we never had cameras in our homes. We never did. One Christmas, my first Christmas special. And that was for, you know, "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" and then they left.

KING: But the public knew about bad things that happened to you.

GIFFORD: They knew about bad things, sure, but they also saw us survive. I remember people were always saying, do you have a statement? And I would go, you know, we're really busy trying to be a statement. I think sometimes we talk too much about everything. And we assume that everybody's fascinated about it. When in reality we should only really talk to the people that truly care, whose opinions really matter to us.

KING: How did you deal with the criticism that you exploited the kids?

GIFFORD: I think that's funny now, when you think about what's going on in the world today. Regis and I were the first people that made our living talking about our lives.

KING: Last night, we --

GIFFORD: Last night, we did this. Regis was at a point where his kids had muzzled him when I came on the scene. They were teenagers and they didn't want to be discussed on TV. I was single when I sat down with Regis at first. I knew Frank, but we weren't dating or anything. So I got married and then we had children. And if you're going to talk about your life -- I'm not going to make up stuff, say I saw a movie last night I didn't see. I'd say, last night we did this or whatever.

But it was never -- the world was different then. Larry, it was very different. It was not the kind of frenzy, the paparazzi frenzy there is today.