Hoda Kotb is not holding back sharing her thoughts on Gavin Rossdale’s new relationship with his girlfriend, Xhoana Xheneti.
“This is so interesting. So he’s making headlines. So why is he making headlines? Well you know, he was famously married to Gwen Stefani for 13 years,” Kotb, 59, explained on the Monday, May 13, episode of Today With Hoda and Jenna, before instructing viewers and her cohost, Jenna Bush Hager, to close their eyes.
A picture of Rossdale, 58, and Xheneti embracing came onto the screen as Kotb exclaimed, “What?” In the snap, Xheneti bared a striking resemblance to Stefani, 54, with her platinum blonde hair, facial features and a bright red lip.
“I thought, ‘Poor Blake [Shelton],’” Kotb said of her reaction after seeing the photo, referencing Stefani’s husband, 47. “That’s what I thought for a second. For one second. They look exactly the same. He has a type.”
Gavin Rossdale and Girlfriend Xhoana Xheneti’s Relationship Timeline
Bush Hager, 42, agreed that Xheneti and Stefani shared several similarities. “But for a type to look like an identical twin, and they dress the same, red lipstick, hair, all of it.” Kotb added, “That would be kind of weird.”
Bush Hager noted that if an ex got into a relationship with someone who had a resemblance to their previous partner, she would think of the situation as “flattering.”
“I think you have to think, ‘I’m the one that got away,’” Bush Hager said. “Which every girl thinks that and usually it’s not true.”
Rossdale made his relationship with Xheneti Instagram official in March 2024, years after Stefani filed for divorce from him in 2015. Stefani, for her part, has since remarried Shelton.
As for whether Kotb has a type of her own when it comes to men, she noted that she used to — but doesn’t anymore.
Everything Today’s Hoda Kotb Has Said About Dating, Breakups and More
“I used to like kind of Omar Sharif. Like, that kind of suave. And then I kept switching. I like athletes no matter what they look like,” Kotb said, to which Bush Hager replied, “I’m asking because I’m still trying to find you somebody. So athletes no matter what they look like?”
Kotb confirmed that was true and added, “And I like somebody who’s got strong moral … like Henry [Hager], by the way. You have a great husband.”
Kotb, for her part, recently shared that she’s going on a third date with a mystery man two years after her split from ex-fiancé Joel Schiffman.
“I think it was just the kind of fun of talking about something that wasn’t kids and wasn’t work,” she said on the Friday, May 10, episode of The Drew Barrymore Show. It was just life, and I missed that. And he’s really handsome.”
