Several “Today” show co-hosts tearfully reacted to Hoda Kotb’s shocking announcement that she would be leaving the NBC show after 26 years.
Savannah Guthrie, Jenna Bush Hager, Al Roker, Sheinelle Jones and Craig Melvin sat with Kotb while she emotionally announced her departure.
“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 does it hold? What’s it gonna have for me? And I realized that it was time for me to turn the page at 60 and to try something new,” Kotb said through tears on Thursday’s broadcast.
Shortly after sharing the news, all the co-hosts shared a few words while also talking through tears.
“We love you so much, and when you look around and see these tears, they’re love, and you are so loved, and honestly I don’t think any of us can imagine –– we don’t wanna imagine this place without you,” Guthrie began through a whispering voice and tears.
Guthrie –– who co-anchors the first two hours of the news show with Kotb –– admitted that the decision is “complicated,” because they love her and “don’t want [her] to ever go.”
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“But also, I just wanna say I am so proud of my friend. You have guts. For someone to leave at the top of their game, to leave something that’s wonderful, that you love where it’s easy and comfortable and beautiful and fun and say, ‘But I dream even bigger for myself in the great unknown.’ You have so much guts. You inspire me, I love you,” Guthrie said.
Guthrie, 52, continued the sweet sentiments, sharing an Instagram reel from the morning broadcast and writing, “Oh, Hoda. All the tears for you. For love and joy and above all, gratitude for this beautiful soul, who has light, warmth, goodness and faith – in abundance. I love you with all my heart, dearest Hoda. We will always be by each other’s side. ❤️.”
Bush Hager –– who co-hosts “Today With Hoda and Jenna” with Kotb –– then added some humor into the emotional conversation by joking that it’s “not over,” because she’s going to be “showing up at your house like the stalker.”
“We are your friends forever,” Bush Hager, 43, sweetly added.
However, Bush Hager was able to fully express her “bittersweet” emotions later on when she and Kotb co-hosted the fourth hour together.
“I said, ‘No! You can’t leave, because what we have here, with all of these people,” Bush Hager said while crying. “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.”
Bush Hager admitted that she even called her dad, former President George W. Bush, in tears while telling him the news on Wednesday night.
Meanwhile, weatherman Al Roker emotionally told her, “I have never known anyone like you, and I’ve known you forever, and I love you.”
Sheinelle Jones, the co-host of the third hour of the broadcast show, chimed in to tell viewers that the entire group is a “family.”
“Hoda has a relationship with every single person on this couch in her own way, so I think we’re all just kind of wrestling with it inside, but we also know what a dynamic mom you are and presence you are and your whole movement with wellness, you are going to change the world, and we know it, so we’re still here,” Jones said.
Kotb stunned fans when she announced that she would be leaving the NBC family after 26 years.
“I decided this is the right time for me to kind of move on. And so with all that being said, this is the hardest thing in the world. I’m not gonna be here past the first of the year. I’m gonna stay in the NBC family, but it’s kind of a big deal for me,” she said through tears.
Prior to Thursday’s emotional segment, a source told that Kotb made her decision after moving to the suburbs of New York City with her two daughters, Haley, 7, and Hope, 4.
“It’s heartbreaking for everyone, but Hoda wants to be able to walk her kids to school,” the insider told us.
However, the same source told us that she still hopes to stay on the show in “some capacity.”
“We have time to work it out,” the source said.
Kotb recently moved to the suburbs after raising her young daughters in NYC. She even took off earlier this month to walk them to their first day of school and gushed over how “normal” it felt.
The broadcast journalist first joined the NBC family in 1998 when she worked as a correspondent for “Dateline NBC” and other NBC News platforms.
She eventually joined the fourth hour on “Today With Hoda and Kathie Lee” in 2008. Kathie Lee Gifford left in 2019, and Bush Hager filled the spot, thus creating “Today With Hoda and Jenna.”
In 2018, Kotb became the official co-anchor of “Today” alongside Guthrie after Matt Lauer was fired for allegations of sexual misconduct.
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