Hoda Kotb, the co-anchor of NBC’s Today Show, announced on Thursday that she would be departing the program after 17 years.
She will remain on the program until early 2025 and will continue to make contributions.
During the morning transmission of the program, the announcement was made in the presence of co-anchor Jenna Bush Hager and several other NBC hosts.
In her emotional announcement, Kotb stated that she reached her decision after celebrating her 60th birthday with her colleagues. She felt as though she was at the “crest of the wave” and that it was “time to turn the page.”
“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’s it hold? What’s it going to have for me? And I realized that it was time for me to turn the page at 60 and to try something new. And I think I realized that this was so crazy. But remember our 60th birthday that we had outside? It was so I can see it.” Kotb said in an annoucement.
Hoda Kotb has announced that she is leaving TODAY early next year. pic.twitter.com/sXuRsDbNnI
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) September 26, 2024
“And I remembered standing outside looking at this beautiful bunch of people with all these gorgeous signs. And I thought, like, this is what the top of the wave feels like for me. And I thought, it can’t get better.” she continued.
“And I decided that this is the right time for me to to kind of move on. And then I thought about, obviously I had my kiddos late in life and I was thinking that they deserved a bigger piece of my “time 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, because just today I was looking at my phone, and all you guys are holding my kids and I was like, my gosh. I kept looking at all the pictures anyway, but I’m not. I’m going to be here through the rest of the year past the first of the year, and I’m going to stay in the NBC family. But it’s kind of a big deal for me.” she added.
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