‘Everything Has Changed’ Between Kathie Lee Gifford And Hoda Kotb (EXCLUSIVE)

Say it ain’t so! New details have emerged about Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb‘s relationship following Kathie’s announcement that she’s leaving Today. Sources tell In Touch that while they may seem like BFFs on camera — and were once really close IRL — that has all “changed.”

“Kathie lost Frank and needs a best friend more than ever. But Hoda’s got the baby, boyfriend, a top job, and doesn’t have time for her anymore.”

In fact, they were once so close they lived in the same building. But not anymore. “There was a time when Kathie would play Hoda her new music and Hoda would cry. She used to tell Hoda that she ‘understood her soul.’ Everyone knew she was being played — except Kathie.”

Kathie announced that she was stepping down from her time as host after more than a decade. “Okay, I have something to share with everybody. It’s bittersweet as these things always are, but I have been here almost 11 years,” Kathie, 65, said on the show Tuesday.

“Thought I would stay one year. Something happened along the way and fell in love with a beautiful Egyptian goddess and when it’s our 11th anniversary I will be leaving the Today show. I know. It’s an exciting time for me and I’m thrilled about the projects coming up, but it’s also hard is because the reason I stayed longer than a year is because I love everybody here,” she explained. “I have been in this business 20 years and never worked with a more beautiful group of people who just give, give, give every day, four hours of live television five days a week. We laugh and support one another and know each other’s kids names and know when somebody is having a colonoscopy.”

Kathie even dedicated a heartfelt goodbye to Hoda. “We do life and nobody more so than my Hoda. It’s going to be the same as my Regis. I’m closer to him now than after 15 years together,” Kathie said. “You don’t share that life together and not be changed forever by it. I love you, Hoda mama.”

But now it seems as though her message may have just been for the cameras. “They stopped hanging out before and after the show. They stopped lunches and dinners and going to the theatre,” the source concluded. “Everything has changed.”