Kathie Lee Gifford has joined in the many friends, celebrities and fans wishing Hoda Kotb well after she announced she will be leaving TODAY in early 2025.
Kathie Lee, who hosted TODAY with Kathie Lee and Hoda from 2008 to 2019, reacted to the news on social media Sept. 27, the day after Hoda made her announcement live on-air.
“Bittersweet news as my dear friend @hodakotb steps away from the Today Show,” Kathie Lee said in a post on X. “Her warmth, laughter, and incredible spirit have brightened our mornings and touched countless hearts. Here’s to new adventures!”
Kathie Lee also posted two photos of herself and Hoda smiling and laughing from when they hosted the fourth hour of TODAY together.
Hoda tearfully announced Thursday that she would be departing from the anchor chair and her seat alongside Jenna Bush Hager. She said reflecting on the past decade at her 60th birthday celebration helped inform her decision.
“I realized that it was time for me to turn the page at 60, and to try something new,” she said. “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.”
As Hoda spoke, her co-hosts Jenna, Savannah Guthrie, Sheinelle Jones, Al Roker and Craig Melvin looked on, many of them with tears in their eyes.
“It’s kind of a big deal for me,” Hoda said through tears. “I’ve been practicing so I wouldn’t cry, but anyway, I did.”
She said she also wants to spend more time with her children, Haley, 7, and Hope, 5, though she added she will remain with the NBC family in an unspecified role.
“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,” she added.
Hoda’s co-hosts all shared words of encouragement.
“We love you so much,” Savannah said. “And when you look around and see these tears, they’re love. You are so loved. We don’t want to imagine this place without you.”
Jenna cried as Hoda made her announcement and shared more about how she found out the news on Thursday’s episode of TODAY with Hoda & Jenna.
“Hoda told me just a couple days ago, and when she told me, my first reaction it was, from my gut, it was almost crazy,” Jenna said. “I said ‘No, you can’t leave because what we have here with all of these people.’ What I get to sit next to you and feel is this, it’s what’s between us, and it is magical and powerful, and it feels like that here.”
Jenna said she called her father, former President George W. Bush, after Hoda told her the news.
“And then he said, ‘Oh, she’s leaving because it’s time, and you’re going to be fine,’” Jenna said. “‘It’s your turn. It’s OK.’”
