Kathie Lee Gifford on Matt Lauer: Pray for ‘Forgiveness and Mercy’

While the sudden termination of long-time Today anchor Matt Lauer amidst sexual misconduct allegations rocked NBC on Wednesday, co-host Kathie Lee Gifford offered forgiveness.

Gifford and Hoda Kotb discussed how difficult it can be to process that kind of news when it involves a colleague, friend or loved one.

“You’ve loved someone so much,” Kotb said, “and then you hear something and you go, ‘Wait, what? How does that make sense?’ You grapple with that in your head, and you try to make sense out of it.”

Gifford, who compared Lauer’s behavior to her husband’s infamous public affair in the late 1990s took a different tone.

“I don’t know,” the 64-year-old co-host said. “I’m grappling with [whether] I should even share something, but I guess I really should. I don’t feel that Matt has betrayed us in any way at all.”

In 1997, tabloids reported on Frank Gifford’s secretive meet-ups with another woman. The scandal was highly publicized, and the Giffords weren’t quiet about how embarrassing it was for them. Frank Gifford died in 2015.

“No person is perfect in this world,” she said. “Nobody is. We’ve all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, is what scripture says. And what we need now is forgiveness, and we need mercy for one another.”

Gifford said victims often feel like they’re to blame for the consequences of a scandal like this and the only way to “heal” and move forward is with forgiveness on all sides.

“I send out my love right now to the person — whoever it is — that came forward. May God heal that person,” she said. “I send it to Matt, and his children and his wife. May God bless that family and heal.”

According to NBC‘s announcement, Lauer was fired after a “detailed complaint” was filed by an anonymous co-worker. However, NBC News Chairman Andrew Lack said in a statement the complaint may represent a pattern of behavior.

“While it is the first complaint about his behavior in the over 20 years he’s been at NBC News, we were also presented with reason to believe this may not have been an isolated incident,” he said.