Morning show fans are wondering why Hoda Kotb is leaving The TODAY Show after she announced her retirement. Sharing the news with her cast in a tearful segment on Thursday, September 26, Hoda explains that her 60th birthday caused her to reexamine her life and her priorities. Kotb has been an anchor at NBC News for over 26 years and has been co-anchor on the TODAY show for more than 5 years.
Why Hoda Kotb is retiring from NBC morning show after 5 years
Hoda Kotb revealed that it was “time for her to turn the page” and that her children “deserved a bigger piece of her time pie” moving forward.
Kotb has two children whom she adopted “late in life,” daughters Haley, 7, and Hope, 5. In February 2024, the anchor needed to step away unexpectedly from the morning show due to a medical crisis that caused Hope to be admitted to an intensive care unit (ICU) for several days and in the hospital for more than a week, per People.
Also, several weeks before announcing her retirement, Kotb shared that she and her daughters moved from their New York City apartment into a suburban home, as reported by the New York Post. She shared on the August 27 episode this year that she loved “the whole kind of restarting, repotting, starting something new” phase of her life.
When Kotb adopted her daughters, she was in a relationship with financier Joel Schiffman. While they got engaged in November 2019, she announced their split in January 2022.
In July 2024, fans were worried Kotb had retired from the show after she posted a flight tracker in a cryptic Instagram post. But it was just a teaser for her coverage of the 2024 Paris Olympics, which included an interview with Simone Biles.
On the Hoda & Jenna segment of the show after her announcement, as reposted on Instagram, Kotb shared that the decision to retire was far from easy. After calling her relationship with Jenna Bush Hager as “one in a million,” she said that “saying goodbye to something that’s amazing is hard.”
In a letter to the Today show staff, she revealed that she still plans “to remain a part of the NBC family.” The article mentions that Kotb will continue “in an unspecified role.” She will remain on The TODAY Show past the start of 2025, so she will still be on the show for at least three more months.
