Hoda Kotb is bidding farewell to Today present anchoring duties after 17 years.
“As I write this, my coronary heart is everywhere in the map,” the journalist wrote in a letter to workers of the NBC morning present, shared Thursday, Sept. 26. “I do know I’m making the suitable resolution, but it surely’s a painful one. And also you all are the rationale why. They are saying two issues will be proper on the similar time, and I’m feeling that so deeply proper now. I really like you and it’s time for me to depart the present.”
Explaining her reasoning, Kotb added partially, “My broadcast profession has been past significant, a brand new decade of my life lies forward, and now my daughters and my mother need and deserve a bigger slice of my time pie. I’ll miss you all desperately, however I’m prepared and excited.”
She’ll keep in her present function till the start of 2025. However she will not be absent from the community solely after the brand new 12 months; Kotb will stay on in some capability, writing, “Fortunately and gratefully, I plan to stay part of the NBC household, the longest work relationship I’ve been fortunate sufficient to carry near my coronary heart.”
“I’ll be round. How might I not? Household is household and also you all will all the time be part of mine,” Kotb mentioned.
Kotb is the co-anchor of NBC Information’ Right this moment alongside Savannah Guthrie, and the co-host of Right this moment‘s fourth hour alongside Jenna Bush Hager.
She and Guthrie, 52, made historical past because the first-ever pair of feminine co-hosts of the favored morning speak present.
Kotb was the primary host of Right this moment‘s fourth-hour broadcast at 10 a.m. in September 2007, and was joined by co-host Kathie Lee Gifford in April 2008. Hager turned Kotb’s co-host in August 2019 following Gifford’s departure.
She was named co-anchor of Right this moment in January 2018 following Matt Lauer‘s ousting amid allegations of his sexual misconduct.
Kotb has shared her journey to motherhood on the present and on her social media.
After a breast-cancer diagnosis in 2007 left her unable to conceive, she adopted a daughter, Haley Joy, in 2017. The TV character’s household grew in 2019 with the adoption of her second daughter, Hope Catherine. She shares the 2 ladies along with her ex-fiancé Joel Schiffman.
Whereas Right this moment movies in Manhattan, Kotb and her daughters not too long ago moved to a home within the suburbs the place Haley, 7, and Hope, 4, have their very own rooms.
“They’re so excited to have their own space,” the mom of two defined Right this moment. “They’re excited a few studying chair, they’re enthusiastic about having a beanbag chair, and their mattress — that type of stuff.”
Shifting to a brand new house in a brand new neighborhood additionally had its justifiable share of challenges.
“It’s all new — new youngsters, new faculty, new issues, new the whole lot,” added Kotb. “It’s humorous as a result of all I might consider was I need my home for the youngsters to really feel heat and comfortable and a spot the place they need to hold. And that’s it.”
“I need my youngsters to really feel grass on their toes, and play within the yard, and journey bikes down the road, and run up and down the steps,” she instructed PEOPLE in an exclusive interview about the move. “I simply see that life for them on this good home on this stunning little city the place I do know they’re going to be capable to blossom into stunning, impartial, robust ladies.”
The women stayed house whereas Kotb was in Paris for final month’s 2024 Summer Olympics however cheered on their mom and Team USA.
In February 2023, Kotb was absent from Today for 2 weeks when Hope skilled a medical crisis that landed her within the intensive care unit (ICU) for a number of days and within the hospital for greater than every week.
“We had a scary stretch,” Kotb instructed PEOPLE this previous March. “Any guardian who’s been by means of a scary factor with their little one understands. It’s such as you simply can’t consider that your little one’s sick. You may’t consider that there’s nothing you are able to do. You may’t consider that it doesn’t matter what you do, you possibly can’t will it away or shield her, or all of the issues that we’re imagined to be doing as mother and father. And it’s a place I’ve by no means discovered myself in.”
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When the household lastly returned house, they started settling right into a longer-term journey of managing Hope’s well being. (Due to Hope’s younger age, Kotb determined to not get particular about her daughter’s analysis, however she shared on the time that they had been persistently monitoring her across the clock to safeguard her well-being.)
Months in, “things have stabilized,” Kotb instructed PEOPLE, including that she employed further assist to stability the brand new medical calls for along with her extremely uncommon and inflexible work schedule. Her high precedence was “making an attempt to make the whole lot regular,” she mentioned on the time: “It’s actually difficult, as a result of I don’t need Hope to get labeled. She’s a child who’s so vibrant, and most days the whole lot is completely nice. I don’t need folks to take a look at her in another way.”