Hoda Kotb Has Had Quite The Transformation
There are few faces on television screens more familiar than that of Hoda Kotb. For well over a decade now, the affable TV host has cheerily greeted viewers each morning who tune into NBC's long-running "Today" show. Kotb, in fact, has been a member of the NBC family for a quarter-century, first joining the network as a news correspondent back in 1998, and then landing at "Today" in 2007.
And while there's no denying that Kotb has risen through the ranks to the top of the network news business, she's admitted that ascension certainly wasn't the result of relentless ambition. "I wasn't one of those people who thought, 'I'm going to be at the network by the time I'm 30,'" she told MediaBistro. She did, however, credit her success to a combination of her own persistent nature and random good fortune. "Tenacity and a lot of luck, and just really fortunate timing," she said. "So much of it is the stars aligning."
Of course, the other big factors have been Kotb's talent and sheer likability, characteristics that have endeared her to viewers since her early days as a news anchor in Greenville, Mississippi, and continue to do so today. As the legions of fans who've followed her on her journey can attest, it's been one heck of a ride — and it's far from over. To find out more, read on for a look at the stunning transformation of Hoda Kotb.
As a child, Hoda Kotb was buoyed by her mother's unwavering support
The daughter of Egyptian immigrants, Hoda Kotb was born in Oklahoma, and raised in Alexandria, Virginia. Not only did she experience the American assimilation that's common to many children of immigrants who've come to the U.S., she and her family also made regular trips to Egypt when she was young. This allowed her the unique opportunity to experience the cultures of both her homeland and that of her parents while growing up.
During a 2007 interview with "Today," Kotb revealed that it wasn't until she visited Egypt that she realized her name — which had always made her stand out in Virginia — was hardly out of the ordinary in her parents' native land. "So my name Hoda is so weird here, but in Egypt it's like Jane," she said. "I've walked down the streets in Cairo and someone yelled out 'Hoda!' and like 10 girls turned around. I'm literally the Jane Smith of the Nile, but here everyone's like 'What's your name? How do you spell it? Rhoda?'"
In a 2022 edition of "Today," Kotb and guest Amy Schumer discussed their respective childhoods, leading Kotb to credit the steadfast support of her mother for contributing to developing her self-confidence. "When I was a kid, I had stop sign glasses, frizzy hair and a crazy name, and my mom was like, 'No one's more beautiful than you,'" she recalled, as reported by Hello!
She faced a lot of rejection before landing her first job in television
Her sights set on a career in broadcast journalism, Hoda Kotb was a recent college grad who'd spent a year as a news assistant in Cairo when she embarked on a job search. She lined up an interview at a local TV station in Richmond. After the news director watched her tape, he broke it to her: she was too inexperienced, and he wouldn't be hiring her. However, he knew a station in nearby Roanoke that he was certain would give her a shot. When she got there, the news director at that station offered the same assessment, recommending she try Memphis. She got back in her car and drove to Tennessee — where she received her third rejection.
"I was in that car driving around for 10 days. I got rejected everywhere," she said during a conversation with Savannah Guthrie on SiriusXM, recalling being turned down 27 times. Discouraged, she was about to head home when she found herself lost in Mississippi. Suddenly, she saw a sign promoting the CBS station in Greenville, and decided to make one more stop before going back. "I said, 'I'm gonna go there and get rejected,'" she said.
When she arrived, she met with news director Sam Sandroni. Miraculously, he hired her. "Sometimes you think you need every single person to think you're good, and you don't," she mused. "You need one, and Stan was my one."
Her big career break came in New Orleans
Hoda Kotb spent the next few years as a new anchor in Greenville, learning the ropes and sharpening her skills. All that work paid off when, in 1992, an anchor job became available in New Orleans, a far bigger market than Greenville. She put herself forward and was hired as lead anchor for WWL-TV. "Anchoring in New Orleans was a big deal for me because I fell in love with that city," she told Today.
That love proved to be mutual, and she was quickly embraced by viewers. "It's the closest to a hometown I've ever felt," she told Southern Living. "There's a magnetism about New Orleans that grabs you right out of the gate."
While Kotb ultimately left New Orleans, her undying love for the city did not diminish. In fact, she frequently returns to the Big Easy, as she did in 2018 to produce some "Today" segments there. "What I miss about New Orleans: everything," Kotb told The Advocate. "I miss the feeling of a random hug on the street. I miss the feeling of, like, music coming out of places. I miss the warmth." In addition, she told Today, there was the connection she felt with the people who tuned in each night to watch her deliver the news. "But what I really miss," she added, "is looking at people who look at you the way a relative would look at you."
Being hired by NBC was a game changer
As much as Hoda Kotb had fallen in love with New Orleans, it wasn't enough to prevent her from pursuing an opportunity in the Big Apple with NBC News that arose in 1998. Asked by MediaBistro to single out her biggest professional success, Kotb zeroed in on the moment she received the phone call informing her than she'd been hired by "Dateline NBC." "I said, 'Put it in a sentence for me' because I wanted to remember the moment," Kotb recalled. "She said, 'You are a correspondent for 'Dateline NBC.' I just freaked."
The opportunity to come to New York and work at the network level in Rockefeller Center was a heady one, but there were drawbacks. "I took a pay cut to come to NBC," she told E! News of why she agreed to take less money to be a smaller fish in a bigger pond, when she could have comfortably remained both highly paid and universally beloved in New Orleans.
For Kotb, however, it was never about money. "I took less because I thought, 'Wow, could I do this job? Do I have what it takes? Or am I going to end up going back to New Orleans and basically asking politely for my job back if I could?'" she explained. "But I knew that if I didn't do it, I would wake up every single morning and think, 'I wonder if I had taken that 'Dateline' job ...'"
Her first marriage ended badly
In later 2005, Hoda Kotb married Burzis Kanga, a tennis coach whom she'd originally met in New Orleans. "We have been dating off and on for years," she told New Orleans Living, revealing they'd tied the knot in the Dominican Republic. "I am a married, honest woman, finally!" she quipped. According to Kotb, Kanga was still "acclimating" to living in New York after relocating there in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. "But for him trying to find his way, it's hard. This is a different kind of city," she said.
The marriage did not last for long. RadarOnline reported that Kotb filed for divorce in February 2007. Kanga responded that September, and the divorce was finalized the following February. While Kotb has not said much about her brief first marriage, RadarOnline noted that she addressed it on the air during the February 14 broadcast of "Today" in 2013. "Valentine's Day, I'll be honest with you, is not my favorite holiday of the year," she admitted. "I met my first husband on Valentine's Day. And we signed our divorce papers on Valentine's Day."
In a subsequent interview, Kanga implied that he bore a significant amount of the blame for why the marriage didn't work out. "In hindsight, there was [a] level of immaturity on my part, mistakes I made," he told RadarOnline, without getting into any details. "It was unfortunate we were married for a short time. It's a shame it transpired that way."
She underwent treatment for breast cancer
Around the same time that Hoda Kotb filed to end her first marriage, she was also diagnosed with breast cancer. She underwent a mastectomy, and began taking tamoxifen, an estrogen-reducing medication used to treat breast cancer. After that, she began wearing a pink ring on one of her fingers. As she told Today, "it's not like I need a physical reminder of my breast cancer, aside from what has happened to me. But it just reminds me. I feel safe with it on."
Kotb looked back at that particularly painful time in her life during a 2023 edition of "Today," and recalled being in a far darker place than anyone who watched her on television would have realized. "I went through a divorce and breast cancer simultaneously, and I remembered in that time barely functioning," she said, as reported by Us Weekly.
However, she emerged from the darkness with renewed health and a whole new attitude. As Kotb saw it, everyone who goes through a battle with cancer and survives takes something from the experience, and she was no different. "My take-away, what I got from this whole ordeal, was the headline that 'You can't scare me.' That's what I took away," she told Today. "And it also reminds you that your life has limits. It's to be valued and not wasted. I decided I'm not wasting one more minute. Suddenly your life gets clearer, and it weeds everything out."
One day co-hosting with Kathie Lee Gifford sealed their partnership
While Hoda Kotb was recuperating from her cancer ordeal, NBC announced plans to add a fourth hour to "Today." As she explained during an episode of "Today," being reminded of the brevity and impermanence of life had given her a level of fearlessness that she'd never experienced before. She set her mind on hosting that fourth hour. "I remember going up the elevator and I'm like, 'I'm gonna ask for that job.' I would never have dreamt that I was even deserving of that job," she said. She got it, and in September 2007 began hosting the fourth hour of "Today."
A few months later, the network announced Kathie Lee Gifford would be joining the hour. Gifford was hardly a stranger to morning television, having carved out a niche as Regis Philbin's longtime co-host on "Live with Regis and Kathie Lee." However, it wasn't a lock that Kotb would co-host alongside Gifford.
The deal was sealed when Gifford joined Kotb for an episode, and was blown away by the onscreen chemistry they shared. "Kathie Lee said, after our one hosting day, she said, 'If it's not Hoda, I'm not going to do it,'" Kotb recalled while appearing on iHeartRadio's "Just B with Bethenny Frankel" podcast. "She chose me and I am forever grateful." And with that began a wildly successful 11-year partnership characterized by hilariously outrageous TV moments fueled by countless gallons of Chardonnay.
She wrote a New York Times bestseller, and then more books
After receiving a clear bill of health, her cancer in remission, Hoda Kotb wrote her first book, the memoir "Hoda: How I Survived War Zones, Bad Hair, Cancer, and Kathie Lee." In the New York Times bestseller — co-written by Jane Lorenzini and published in 2010 — Kotb opened up about both her personal and professional journeys, and gave readers deep insight into her cancer ordeal.
The book was well received, and she clearly relished her new role as best-selling author. In 2013, she and Lorenzini teamed up on another book, "Ten Years Later," telling the stories of six people who — not unlike Kotb herself — faced seemingly insurmountable adversity in their lives, and then not only overcame it, but used what they'd learned from the experience to take their lives in successful new directions. Then, In 2016, the two wrote "Where We Belong." Subtitled "Journeys That Show Us the Way," that book introduced six people who found success by following their respective passions, a group that included the likes of TV producer Mark Burnett, and comedian Margaret Cho.
Meanwhile, Kotb has also become an author of children's books, with the publication of "I've Loved You Since Forever," "You Are My Happy," and "Hope is a Rainbow." She's also written "I Really Needed This Today," and "This Just Speaks to Me," compiling the various inspirational quotes that she'd taken to sharing with fans on Instagram.
She became a mom in her 50s
In February 2017, "Today" viewers were told that Hoda Kotb was taking some time off, and wouldn't be appearing on the show for a bit. They eventually learned why, when her co-hosts revealed she'd become a first time mother — at the age of 52, adopting a newborn baby. She shared a photo of her new arrival, daughter Haley, on social media. Kotb called into the show, telling viewers, "She's a Valentine's baby. She is the love of my life."
Speaking with People, Hotb explained her decision to adopt a baby. "One of the things in my life I've always wanted was to be a mom," she said, explaining that the treatment she'd undergone for breast cancer had left her unable to conceive. "Sometimes in your life, things just don't work out for whatever reason, so you say, 'Well, I wasn't meant to have that.' But it was really hard to come to terms with it." Two years later, Kotb surprised everyone yet again when she revealed she'd adopted a second child, a baby girl named Hope.
Along with all the joy, Kotb admitted her motherhood journey was not without apprehension, primarily due to her age. "I think I was thinking, one of the scary parts about being an older mom is wondering how much time you have," she said during an episode of "Today." "You do the math a lot and that's something I don't like doing because it's scary."
Matt Lauer's scandal propelled her to Today's co-host
Matt Lauer joined "Today" in 1994 as news anchor, and in 1997 was bumped up to co-host. It all came crashing down in late 2017 when multiple allegations of sexual harassment initiated an investigation that resulted in Lauer's firing.
Kotb, who was still co-anchoring the fourth hour of "Today" with Kathie Lee Gifford, was brought in as a temporary replacement on an interim basis. After about a month, NBC News made it official, announcing that Kotb was Lauer's permanent replacement as co-host alongside Savannah Guthrie. "Over the past several weeks, Hoda has seamlessly stepped into the co-anchor role alongside Savannah, and the two have quickly hit the ground running," NBC News chairman Andy Lack wrote in a memo to staff, as reported by the Los Angeles Times. Kotb revealed that she'd heard from Lauer, who'd sent her a text congratulating her on the appointment.
Shortly after taking over Lauer's gig, Kotb revealed that while she'd be filling Lauer's chair, she was not earning the same paycheck — which, she hinted, wasn't even in the same ballpark as Lauer's salary (reportedly $20 million per year). Interviewed by People, Kotb shot down speculation that she would be paid the same amount that Lauer had been earning for doing the same job. "The answer is no — that's not happening," she declared. "So no, I'm not making Matt Lauer money. Not even close."
She found further success by partnering with a president's daughter
In December 2018, Kathie Lee Gifford announced she was exiting "Today." Prior to Gifford's final appearance on the show the following April, NBC announced that Hoda Kotb — who remained Gifford's co-host for the fourth hour while also co-hosting the first hour — would be continuing on that fourth hour with a new partner: Jenna Bush Hager, one of two twin daughters of President George W. Bush and wife Laura. "Jenna joined 'Today' nearly 10 years ago and she quickly became a fixture in our family," NBC News president Noah Oppenheim wrote in a memo to "Today" staff, as reported by Variety.
That pairing proved to be just as successful as Kotb's on-air partnership with Gifford — and just as boozy, with the two continuing the show's tradition of ushering in the morning with a big glass of wine. It was also, as viewers quickly realized, a very different dynamic, given the distinctive differences in Bush Hager's personality when compared to the bombastic Gifford.
The key difference, however, was that Kotb and her new co-host — despite an age difference of nearly two decades — were both mothers of young children, a dynamic that came to be the central crux of the hour. "We were on parallel paths and we're finally at the point where we're intersecting," Kotb told E! News. "I feel like we have so many more things to talk about because our lives keep going into these crazy new chapters."
She and fiancé Joel Schiffman split up after eight years together
When Hoda Kotb adopted her daughters, she wasn't parenting alone; she was in a longtime relationship with Joel Schiffman, with whom she shares their children. In 2019, she announced their engagement. In 2022, however, she revealed she and Schiffman had split after eight years together. "Joel and I have had a lot of prayerful and really meaningful conversations over the holidays, and we decided that we're better as friends and parents than we are as an engaged couple," she told viewers during an episode of "Today with Hoda & Jenna." "So we decided that we are going to start this new year and begin it kind of on our new path as loving parents to our adorable, delightful children, and as friends."
While they were no longer a couple, the two continued to co-parent their daughters. In 2023, the pair publicly reunited to take the girls trick-or-treating on Halloween.
Could a reconciliation be on the horizon? A November 2023 report from Closer Weekly quoted a source who said that Kotb had come to realize that, to paraphrase Joni Mitchell, she didn't know what she'd had til it was gone. "Hoda hasn't found anyone who even compares to Joel ... She realized there really isn't anyone better for her than Joel," the source said, indicating Kotb was open to revisiting the relationship. "Her friends think there's chemistry between them and Hoda's privately confided that he'll always be The One."
Her daughter's serious health struggles took her off the air
In February 2023, viewers of "Today" couldn't help but notice Hoda Kotb wasn't on the show, and hadn't been for some time. After she was absent for two weeks, Craig Melvin explained she was taking some time off to deal with a "family health issue." That same day, Kotb's fourth-hour co-host, Jenna Bush Hager, reiterated that information, but related that "Hoda is okay."
When Kotb finally returned to the show, she revealed that one of her daughters had been seriously ill. "My youngest, Hope, was in the ICU for a few days and in the hospital for a little more than a week," she said, without sharing details. "I'm so grateful she's home. She is back home. I was waiting for that day to come. And we are watching her closely. I'm just so happy." While Kotb didn't share details of her daughter's health scare, she told People, "Hope's doing much better, much better. I think it's going to be a longer road, but she is doing great."
A few months later, during an August episode, Kotb was discussing her new children's book — "Hope is a Rainbow," named for her daughter — and offered an update. "I wrote this a while ago, before Hope was, you know, got sick and is on the mend and all that stuff," she said, as reported by People.
Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager released a holiday single
Hoda Kotb and on-air co-host Jenna Bush Hager celebrated the 2023 holiday season by breaking new ground, doing something that neither had ever done before: releasing a holiday single. The track, "A Carefree Christmas," also featured an accompanying music video. Given that neither of the "Today" hosts are what one might charitably describe as singers, they wisely enlisted an actual vocalist, Cheryl Porter, to do the heavy lifting.
While plugging their new single on the fourth hour of "Today" (as reported by People), the two took on the naysayers. "Look, people are saying there's no way it's going to chart," Kotb said, resulting in Bush Hager to respond, "Who said that? Who said it's not gonna chart?" Kotb, however, insisted, "Why don't we prove everybody wrong?" That they did; one day after the song's release, "A Carefree Christmas" rocketed to No. 7 on the iTunes charts. "At one point, it may have been brief, we made No. 7," Kotb told viewers, displaying a screenshot of the chart, with their tune ranking above Cher's "DJ Play A Christmas Song," and Mariah Carey's holiday perennial "All I Want for Christmas." "All I have to say is woweee," quipped Bush Hager.
Of course, as Kotb's more hardcore fans will know, this is not her first attempt at breaking into the music charts. Back in 2018, Kotb teamed up with Kelly Clarkson for the single "I've Loved You Since Forever."