Hoda Kotb on the ‘Today’ show’ in N.Y.C. on Oct. 17, 2024 . Photo:
Nathan Congleton/NBC/Getty
Hoda Kotb is signing off from the Today show for the final time.
On Friday, Jan. 10, the 60-year-old journalist said goodbye to her anchor position on the NBC news program after 17 years.
“I’m not even able to articulate it because I’m a mess most of the times, but I just want to say thanks,” Kotb said through tears after the daytime program ran a video tribute to her career. “Carson [Daly], you’re like the secret sauce on this show, man. Without you the show doesn’t hum. Like, you have the thing and you brought it. You bring it every day.”
The mom of two continued to shout out her co-anchors. “Al, you’re my first friend here, the first person I met,” she said to Al Roker. “When I got sick, you were the first person that walked into the room and said I was going to be okay.”
Hoda Kotb on the ‘Today’ show on Friday, April 12, 2024. Nathan Congleton/NBC/Getty
Then, Kotb turned her attention to Savannah Guthrie, who she called “my person.”
“Who shows up for everybody? This girl,” Kotb said. “When your brother died, it was this girl. When I was going through stuff with Hope, it was this girl. She’s in the room. She’s always in the room and I love you.”
She closed out by pumping up her replacement, Craig Melvin. “Craig, I mean, I’m so happy for you,” Kotb said. “You earned this. You own this. And come Monday at 7:00 a.m., I’m going to be dead asleep. But you’re gonna be fantastic. You’re going to bring it home! Craig, you’re gonna be so good. You and Savannah are going to be magic.”
After that, Kotb’s co-anchors brought out a slew of guests to send her off, including Maria Shriver and Simone Biles, who called Kotb her “Olympic mom” and said she hoped to see the TV star in Los Angeles for the 2028 games.
Simone Biles (right) surprises Hoda Kotb on the ‘Today’ show on Jan. 10, 2024 in New York City. NBC
“Hopefully we’re in L.A. together, whatever that means,” Biles, 27, said. “Whatever that means for the both of us.”
Kotb replied, “Simone, however you end up in L.A. and whatever you do, I’m going to be there too with you. I love you.”
Kermit came for Kotb’s last day, too, and sang “Rainbow Connection” for Kotb, her daughters Haley, 8, and Hope, 5, and her Today colleagues. Kotb said she played the song when she “rolled in” to work on her final day.
“Hoda, you truly do make very day as beautiful as a rainbow,” Kermit said.
Kermit the Frog joins Hoda Kotb and her daughters Hope and Hayley on the ‘Today’ sow in NY.C. on Jan. 10, 2024. NBC
Afterwards, Kotb headed out to the Today Plaza for her final goodbye.
“Can I just say thank you real quick?” Kotb said. “Can I just say thank you to every person who came out here? I read your cards. I got your bracelets I got the scarves you crocheted. I read the texts. I got everything. So I just want to say from the bottom of my heart, thank you for coming out, for being here and for everything you did.”
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Kotb announced in September that she planned to depart her role at Today after nearly two decades.
“As I write this, my heart is all over the map,” the journalist wrote in a letter to staff of the NBC morning show, shared Thursday, Sept. 26. “I know I’m making the right decision, but it’s a painful one. 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.”
Explaining her reasoning, Kotb added in part, “My broadcast career has been beyond meaningful, a new decade of my life lies ahead, and now my daughters and my mom need and deserve a bigger slice of my time pie. I will miss you all desperately, but I’m ready and excited.”
Hoda Kotb rings in the New Year with daughters Haley and Hope. Hoda Kotb/Instagram
However, the Making Space podcast host shared that she plans to remain part of the team at NBC. In October, she told PEOPLE that those specifics were still “being formulated.”
“It’ll involve doing some specials, doing the podcast and doing maybe the Olympics, stuff like that,” she said at the time. “It’ll be like those kinds of things. So it’ll be specials and all those things. And I think every month or so, I’ll come back on the Today show and do a little something in this space, which I think will be fun.”
In a PEOPLE cover story in October, Kotb opened up about leaving the Today show after experiencing a year of personal turmoil — including her daughter Hope, 5, having a sudden medical crisis in Feb. 2023. (Kotb declined to share the specific ailment out of privacy concerns.)
Hoda Kotb attends the 27th Annual Webby Awards on May 15, 2023 in New York City. Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images
After years of balancing work and being a mom to Hope and her big sister Haley, Kotb admitted it was time for a change. “There’s the guilt you carry because you can’t be 100% at work and 100% at home. Something has to give if you want excellence. If you’re going to be excellent at work, something has to give at home. And if you want to be excellent at home, I mean excellent, and do all the things, something has to give at work. It can’t be equal,” she explained.
Another factor in her decision was the personal reflection that came with celebrating her milestone 60th birthday in August.
“I’ve kind of been contemplating, wondering, thinking about what I wanted this next chunk of my life to look like as I turned 60,” she told PEOPLE. “And I like adventure, I like new beginnings. I’m a sunrise person and not a sunset person, and I was wondering, what does it look like for me?”
As for what’s next for the longtime broadcaster, she teased a new project that was in “its infancy.”
“It’s a whole wellness situation, and I got lit up by that just from stuff I’ve been working on and doing on myself,” she told PEOPLE. “I’ve learned to do a bunch of different things with breath works and what not through friends, through Jenna [Bush Hager], through Maria [Shriver], through all these different people, and I’ve been loving it.”
The television personality added she’s “still early on in the stages” of getting a “really good wellness app together and do wellness retreats and things like that.”
As Kotb bids farewell to the Today show, Melvin, 45, will step in as her replacement, beginning on Monday, Jan. 13.
From left: Craig Melvin and Hoda Kotb on the ‘Today’ show on Monday, September 16, 2019. Nathan Congleton/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal/Getty
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Kotb celebrated the news of Melvin’s new role, telling him on-air, “You are made for this job.”
“You are literally made for this job. You are that kind of good,” she added. “You have all the things that this job needs. You’re the right person for it.”
The Today show airs weekdays on NBC beginning at 7 a.m. ET.
