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Hoda Kotb shocked Today viewers — and had her co-hosts in tears — when she emotionally announced on Thursday, September 26, that she was permanently exiting the morning show.
“I realized that it was time for me to turn the page at 60, and to try something new,” Kotb shared with her longtime co-stars — Savannah Guthrie, Jenna Bush Hager, Al Roker, Craig Melvin, and Sheinelle Jones — on the episode.
Kotb, who celebrated her 60th birthday in August, “remembered standing outside looking at these beautiful bunch of people with these gorgeous signs, and I thought, ‘This is what the top of the wave feels like for me,'” she explained. “And I thought it can’t get better, and I decided that this is the right time for me to kind of move on.”
The beloved anchor, who has been a cheerful fixture at NBC for 26 years, further noted that she wanted to spend more time with her children — Haley, 7, and Hope, 5, whom she often discussed on the show. (Kotb has missed multiple episodes over the years to care for her daughters, disclosing last year that Hope had a health issue that required her to be hospitalized for a week.)
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“Obviously I had my kiddos late in life, and I was thinking that they deserve a bigger piece of my time pie that I have,” she said on Thursday. “I feel like we only have a finite amount of time.”
Still, “with all that being said,” Kotb added, “This is the hardest thing in the world.”
Guthrie, Jones, and Bush Hager all cried as Kotb attempted to talk through her own tears.
“I was practicing not being able to cry, but I did,” Kotb laughed.
“There was no way there wasn’t gonna be tears,” Guthrie told her co-star, as she wiped away tears herself. “We love you so much. And when you look around and see these tears, they are love. You are so loved.”
“We don’t want to imagine this place without you,” Guthrie told Kotb, choking up. So it’s complicated because we love you so much and we don’t want you to ever go.”
“I am so proud of my friend,” she added. “You have guts. For someone to leave at the top of their game … because she … dream[s] even bigger for [her]self … you inspire me,” Guthrie cried.
“I love you. And it’s not over because I’m gonna be showing up at your house,” she quipped. “We are your friends forever.”
Kotb, for her part, joked with her colleagues that she’s “gonna be haunting you in your lives.”
“You don’t ever leave family,” she noted.
Kotb — who has co-hosted Today for five years, and has helmed the third hour of the show with Kathie Lee Gifford for 11 years, and later, with Bush Hager for seven — did offer a ray of hope to her costars and viewers at home: She will remain on Today until early next year, and she will stay at NBC, though in what capacity, she did not reveal.
