The 60-year-old who has co-anchored the fourth hour of Today since 2007 and has worked as an NBC News correspondent since 1998, announced in late September she’s leaving the network after 26 years.
The mother of two appeared on Late Night with Seth Meyers on Wednesday, where she revealed how she told her Today colleague Savannah Guthrie the news.
‘I called Savannah who was out of the country and I said, “I have to tell you something.” She goes, “This sounds scary,”‘ Kotb revealed.
Kotb said she continued, ‘It’s not. I’m going to be, you know, saying good-bye in January.’
The anchor then revealed the surprising and brash response Guthrie gave her, while also revealing how her Today Hour 4 co-host Jenna Bush Hager reacted.
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Hoda Kotb is opening up some more about her decision a few months ago to leave NBC’s Today Show
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The mother of two appeared on Late Night with Seth Meyers on Wednesday, where she revealed how she told her Today colleague Savannah Guthrie the news
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‘She (Savannah) said to me, “I’m going to tell you something right now.” And I said, “Okay.” She said — these are her words. She goes, “You got balls,”‘ Kotb said with a laugh.
Guthrie then added, ‘I’m going to be sad for me and for our show later, but not today. Today’s the day that I say, wow, you’re doing it.’
Kotb said that Bush Hager, ‘did the exact opposite. She was like, “No, no, there is time. No, stop. Stop. Stop. Don’t say any more words.’
She said that after making the announcement live on the air, she got an ‘avalanche’ of texts and phone calls as Meyers joked people would ask her to go to breakfast now.
Kotb admitted she will not miss getting up at 3 AM, though she will miss the NBC commissary, adding when her kids Haley Jay and Hope Catherine come visit, ‘the only thing they ask for is to go up to the ninth floor, the commisssary.’
Her kids were ultimately the reason she decided to step away from the show, admitting she’s been thinking about leaving ‘for awhlie.’
‘I was wondering, like, when was the right time? And I thought all of us, like, have a time pie and you, kind of, have to decide how much of your time pie do your kids get and how much does your work get? And so I thought, you know, it’s time for my kids to get a bigger slice,’ Kotb said.
She has also been on-air for a lot of NBC’s holiday programming such as the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and most recently the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree lightning, which she said, ‘weirdly hit me.’
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‘She (Savannah) said to me, “I’m going to tell you something right now.” And I said, “Okay.” She said — these are her words. She goes, “You got balls,”‘ Kotb said with a laugh
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Guthrie then added, ‘I’m going to be sad for me and for our show later, but not today. Today’s the day that I say, wow, you’re doing it’
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View gallery
She said that after making the announcement live on the air, she got an ‘avalanche’ of texts and phone calls as Meyers joked people would ask her to go to breakfast now
+7
View gallery
She has also been on-air for a lot of NBC’s holiday programming such as the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and most recently the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree lightning, which she said, ‘weirdly hit me’
Hoda Kotb’s Today show replacement announced along with her last day
‘I was thinking to myself… I looked around for a second. You know how sometimes moments pass and you’re not in them. I was totally in it. I was like, “This is it right now,’ she said.
She also admitted to saying hi to the people who line up outside Rockefeller Center every morning.
‘You know what? If there are people who are lined up between 4:30 and 5:00 AM when I come in, I always, like, stop and hang out, do pictures and stuff,’ she said.
‘Because if you’re standing outside of our studio at that hour, you deserve, like, some love,’ Kotb admitted.
