Private eye: Carson’s wife was with Gifford

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

Johnny Carson (left) cried when he found out his wife was having an affair with Frank Gifford (right), according to a private eye.

Photo: Photofest/AP

The top private eye who was hired by Johnny Carson in 1962 to break into his wife’s apartment and uncover her cheating ways has confirmed that Frank Gifford was Joanne Carson’s secret lover.

In an upcoming tell-all, Carson’s lawyer Henry Bushkin writes that the late-night host hired him and three other men, including super-sleuth Joe Mullen, to break into a secret love pad Joanne rented. Mullen — a licensed New York private eye whom Bushkin describes as straight out of a Mickey Spillane crime novel — told Page Six, “I confirm I was present, indeed an eyewitness to the events described by the author as the so-called ‘break-in’ of the apartment used by Johnny Carson’s wife, Joanne.”

The head of the J.T. Mullen agency added: “Break-in is a bit of a misnomer as no locks were picked and no windows broken. The group of us who accompanied [Carson] managed to convince the person on duty to let us into the apartment where we confirmed Carson’s suspicions, finding various framed photos of his wife with football legend Frank Gifford . . . [and] Gifford’s clothes were in a closet along with a bathrobe.”

Mullen further recalled that Carson wept when he learned of his wife’s indiscretions: “At one point, Johnny leaned against the wall and began to sob. Once we had our evidence, we whisked him out of the apartment as quickly as we could.”

Gifford has said of the affair, according to wife Kathie Lee Gifford, “ ‘I can’t remember! Maybe.’ ”

But Kathie Lee added of the affair, “No, it’s not true,” and Joanne Carson also denied it.

Meanwhile, Mullen, we hear, is writing his own memoir that will include behind-the-scenes tales of Carson as well as other notable names.

And Wednesday The Post reported the mafia put a contract out on Carson after he drunkenly hit on a mobster’s mistress in Frank Sinatra’s favorite Manhattan bar Jilly’s Saloon, according to the Bushkin biography.