Hoda Kotb Reveals How ‘Today’ Cohosts Reacted When She Said She Was Leaving

Hoda Kotb is opening up about her career in her new book, Jump and Find Joy: Embracing Change in Every Season of Life, including her decision to leave the Today show and her co-hosts’ reactions to the news.

The long-time broadcast journalist joined Today in 2007 as the fourth-hour co-host before becoming Savannah Guthrie‘s co-anchor on the main Today show in 2018. She announced her retirement in 2024, with her final broadcast airing on January 10, 2025.

In her book, Kotb reflected on the day she told her Today co-workers of her decision, saying it was a “crazy mix of emotions,” per Us Weekly.

“I knew the words I was about to share were unexpected, and that my decision would affect a wide range of coworkers and their plans,” she wrote. “The list of people I needed to tell was long, and the order in which I told them was important to me.”

Kotb revealed the first person she told was the executive vice president of Today and NBC News, Libby Leist. “I told her that I was thinking a lot about this time in my life and about numbers and how I felt about the math,” she explained. “26 years at NBC News, 10 years at Dateline, 7 on the seven o’clock hour, 16 on the ten o’clock hour. And I just turned 60.”

“I told her that I knew I’d have more financial security if I stayed at NBC, but that I had to think about my kids,” she continued. “When you wait so long for children – like I did – you don’t want to miss your time with them.”

On February 21, 2017, Kotb announced on Today that she had adopted a baby girl named Haley Joy Kotb with her then-partner, Joel Schiffman. Then, on April 16, 2019, Kotb appeared on Today via phone to announce that they had adopted a second baby girl, named Hope Catherine Kotb. In January 2022, Kotb announced she and Schiffman had called off their engagement and were focused on co-parenting as friends.

The next person Kotb told about her exit was her co-anchor, Guthrie, who was overseas at the time attending a wedding. Kotb called Guthrie and shared the news with her. “She got very quiet,” Kotb wrote, per Us Weekly. “Then she said, ‘God, you’ve got balls… You’re leaving something that’s like gold in your hands, not because you don’t love it anymore, not because you’re tired of it; you’re just deciding. And that kind of leaving is really something to marvel at.’”

Kotb then called her fourth-hour co-host Jenna Bush Hager and executive producer Talia Parkinson-Jones into her office. Before she could even get the words out, Kotb remembered both Bush Hager and Parkinson-Jones shouting, “‘No, no, no, no!’”

“Finally, I managed to tell them that this would be my last contract,” Kotb recalled. “Jenna started crying, saying through tears, ‘I only did this because I’m with you. You chose me, and we chose us, and now it’s us. This is our show.’”

Kotb also revealed how Parkinson-Jones asked her to stay for “just one more year,” but she remained firm in her decision, telling her how she wanted to “be able to be there for my girls and do basic things like walk them to school.”

The funniest reaction to the news came from Kotb’s “long-time buddy” Al Roker, who put the phone down on her.

“He said, ‘OK, bye,’ and hung up. He hung up on me!” Kotb wrote. “I thought, well, he sure got over that fast. But about five minutes later, he called back. ‘I was just so shocked,’ he explained, ‘and I couldn’t process what you were saying.’”

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