News of Hoda Kotb’s Today show exit is bittersweet for her cohosts.
“I just turned 60, and it was such a monumental moment for me when I turned 60 years old because I started thinking about that decade, like, what does that decade mean? What does it hold? What’s it gonna have for me?” Kotb, 60, tearfully shared on the Thursday, September 26, episode of Today. “And I realized that it was time for me to turn the page at 60 and to try something new.”
Kotb explained that she made the decision to leave Today shortly after her 60th birthday episode in August.
“I remembered standing outside, looking at this beautiful bunch of people with all these gorgeous signs, and I thought, ‘This is what the top of the wave feels like for me,’ and I thought, ‘It can’t get better.’ And [I] decided this is right time for me to, kind of, move on,” she said. “And then, I thought about — obviously, I had my kiddos late in life — and I was thinking they deserve a bigger piece of my time, the pie that I have. I feel like we only have a finite amount of time. And so, with all that being said, this is the hardest thing in the world.”
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Kotb — who shares her daughters Haley, 7, and Hope, 5, with her ex-fiancé, Joel Schiffman — noted that she will remain on Today until January 1, 2025. “I’m gonna stay in the NBC family,” she added. “But it’s kind of a big deal for me.”
Scroll down to see how the Today show family reacted to news of Kotb’s exit:
Savannah Guthrie
“Hoda, we love you so much, and when you look around and you see these tears, they’re love. You are so loved. And honestly, I don’t think any of us can imagine — we don’t want to imagine this place without you,” Guthrie, 52, said through tears on the second hour of Today’s Thursday episode. “So, it’s complicated ‘cause we love you so much and we don’t want you to ever go.”
Kotb’s coanchor went on to state that she’s “so proud” of her friend, adding, “You have guts. For someone to leave at the top of their game, to leave something that’s wonderful, that you love, where it’s easy and comfortable and beautiful and fun and say, ‘But I dream even bigger for myself…’ You have so much guts. You inspire me. I love you.”
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On the show’s third hour, the camera panned over to show Guthrie emotionally eating leftovers from the second hour’s cooking segment. “No one’s taking the news worse than Savannah Guthrie,” Craig Melvin joked.
Guthrie, meanwhile, noted, “We can hold our sorrow of missing her and loving her so much with our gratitude that it happened. … And just the joy and admiration of her bravery.”
Jenna Bush Hager
“Hoda told me just a couple days ago, and when she told me, my first reaction was from my gut and it was almost crazy. … I said, ‘No, you can’t leave,’” Bush Hager, 42, said through a flow of tears on Thursday’s episode of Today With Hoda & Jenna.
“You’re who I come to when I’m feeling joyful, when I’m feeling unsure. You are who I come to and you believed in me first,” she continued. “We have a lot of bosses ad I love them, but this lady, on October 28, 2013 — I looked it up — said, ‘Hey, wanna come sit next to me? There’s room.’”
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Bush Hager noted that she called her father, former President George W. Bush, on Wednesday, September 25. “He said, ‘Oh, she’s leaving ‘cause it’s time, and you’re gonna be fine. It’s your turn. It’s OK,’” she shared, after which Kotb stood up and gave her a round of applause.
“It’s your turn,” Kotb told her cohost. “And whoever sits in this seat, whoever sits in this seat, is going to have the easiest job in the world ‘cause they’re sitting next to you.”
Sheinelle Jones
“The one thing that people know for sure about this group is we are family. And I’m telling you, Hoda has a relationship with every single person on this couch in her own way, so I think we’re all just kind of wrestling with it inside,” Jones, 46, said while sitting on a couch with Kotb and their colleagues on Thursday. “But we also know what a dynamic mom you are, and presence you are. And your whole movement with wellness. You are going to change the world. And we know it.”
During the show’s third hour, she praised Kotb and Guthrie for making waves as Today’s first all-female anchor team in 2018. “The two of you have been such trailblazers. With two sisters helming a national morning, you guys changed the game and made it, now, it’s kind of normal,” she gushed. “It’s like, OK. And you two, you guys did that.”
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Al Roker
“I have never known anybody like you. I’ve known you forever, and I love you,” Roker, 70, said on Thursday’s second hour of Today. He later noted that while the cast will “think about what it means for us,” it’s more about what the decision will mean for Kotb. “We couldn’t be happier.”
Craig Melvin
Melvin, 45, reacted to news of Kotb’s exit by praising her for being the same person on and off the screen. “People in this business, when that little red light, when it goes off, they’re different people. We’ve worked with all these people before. You’re the opposite,” she said on Thursday’s second hour of Today. “When that little red light goes off, you are exactly like people see you in the morning — just the biggest heart. You’ve been the heart of the show for a long time, and there’s no replacing that.”
In the third hour, he added: “It is sad news for us, great news for Hope and Haley.”
Tom Llamas
While reporting on Hurricane Helene on Thursday’s third hour of Today, the NBC News correspondent joked, “About 40 minutes ago, I almost got knocked over, and the crew said, ‘Was that Helene?’ I said, ‘No, that wasn’t Helene. That was the Hoda news.’”
