Hoda Kotb Tears Up During One of Her Final Today Appearances

She continued, “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. 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.”

Hoda—who, incidentally, gifted her incoming replacement Craig Melvin a cozy Mets blanket— joined Savannah as Today coanchor in 2018 and continued to cohost the fourth hour of Today with Jenna Bush Hager, who succeeded Kathie Lee Gifford in 2019.

“I remembered standing outside looking at these beautiful bunch of people with these gorgeous signs,” Hoda explained, “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.”

But even though she won’t be required to be in hair and makeup before dawn, that doesn’t mean the Making Space With Hoda Kotb podcast host is going to be sleeping in all of a sudden.