Hoda Kotb cried while discussing her shocking departure from the “Today” show Thursday morning.
“Saying goodbye to something this amazing is hard,” the seasoned journalist, 60, said through tears on Thursday’s episode of “Today With Hoda and Jenna.”
“It weighed a lot on me. I went back and forth and back and forth, and then I thought to myself, ‘You know, I think this decade I think I’m going to have to start choosing me,” Kotb told co-host Jenna Bush Hager, before confessing she knew it was time to depart for a while.
Bush Hager was just as emotional as Kotb and admitted that she initially told her co-host “no” when she told her about the “bittersweet” decision just a “couple of days ago.”
“I said, ‘No! You can’t leave, because what we have here, with all of these people,” she said through tears. “It is magical and powerful and it feels like that here, and you’re who I come to when I’m feeling joyful, when I’m feeling unsure, you are who I come to, and you believed in me first.”
Kotb agreed that their time together had been “one in a million,” but she’s ready to enter a new decade of life more focused on her two adopted daughters, Haley and Hope.
“I also realized that this wave, this is the peak for me, and I of course thought about my girls, and when you have kids later in life, you think about days and hours and minutes, and you think about walks to school and things, and I thought, I want my kids to get more pieces of my pie,” Kotb explained.
The co-hosts also briefly addressed Kotb’s replacement for the fourth hour, with the mom of two assuring Bush Hager that it’s her “turn” and “whoever sits in this seat is going to have the easiest job in the world.”
Kotb tearfully announced that she would be leaving “Today” — as well as “Today with Hoda and Jenna” — after more than five years as co-anchor.
“I realized that it was time for me to turn the page at 60, and to try something new,” she said Thursday morning.
“I 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.’ And I thought, ‘It can’t get better,’ and I decided that this is the right time for me to kind of move on.”
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The journalist — who shares adopted daughters, Haley, 7, and Hope, 5, with ex Joel Schiffman — said her girls played a big factor in why she decided to step down from her role after they recently moved to the suburbs of New York City.
“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.
“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.”
Kotb will remain with “Today” until January 2025 but will continue working with NBC in an unspecified role.
The mom of two, who has been part of NBC News for nearly 30 years, also wrote a touching letter to her “Today” family, revealing her exit.
“As I write this, my heart is all over the map. I know I’m making the right decision, but it’s a painful one,” she wrote.
“And you all are the reason why. They say two things can be right at the same time, and I’m feeling that so deeply right now. I love you and it’s time for me to leave the show.”
Kotb then thanked some of her closest friends from the networks, including Al Roker, Savannah Guthrie and Bush Hager.
“Savannah: my rock. Jenna: my ride-or-die. Al: my longest friend at 30 Rock,” she wrote.
Though Kotb said she would miss her team, she said her daughters and her mom “need and deserve a bigger slice of my time pie.”
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