Hoda Kotb is ready to date, find forever love: 'I've spent my whole life waiting' Erin Jensen, USA TODAYSeptember 23, 2025 at 4:03 AM 0 Leaping boldly is as embedded in Hoda Kotb's DNA as smiling, loving music and wearing stacks of friendship bracelets.
- - Hoda Kotb is ready to date, find forever love: 'I've spent my whole life waiting'
Erin Jensen, USA TODAYSeptember 23, 2025 at 4:03 AM
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Leaping boldly is as embedded in Hoda Kotb's DNA as smiling, loving music and wearing stacks of friendship bracelets.
In 1998 she bounced from her New Orleans anchor desk for a local CBS affiliate to NBC News' "Dateline."
"I was barely hanging on," Kotb, 61, says. "I used to go up to correspondents and ask them like, 'Can you help me? I don't know how to do this or that.' And it was probably years of feeling insecure."
Kotb pressed on anyway. She began hosting the fourth hour of "Today" in 2007, emboldened by a battle with breast cancer to ask for the promotion. Kotb began coanchoring the "Today" show alongside Savannah Guthrie in 2018. But last September, Kotb made the shocking announcement she was leaving the "Today" show..
"I loved it, but I didn't need it," she says. "I wanted it, but I didn't have to have it. ... There were so many things I wanted to try, but couldn't, didn't have time, wasn't able, busy." She decided in her 60s, she'd "be a beginner again."
Kotb launched her wellness company Joy 101 in May, which offers an app and hosts virtual and in-person events. "By the way, being an entrepreneur is hard, OK?" she says. "Being a CEO of a company is hard. Nobody told me!" but "it's such fun."
Hoda Kotb, with her former co-host Jenna Bush Hager, celebrates the launch of her wellness company Joy 101 on May 28, 2025 in New York City.
Now Kotb is encouraging others to pursue their dreams in her new book, "Jump and Find Joy: Embracing Change in Every Season of Life" (available now). The pages are filled with Kotb's own challenging experiences − including facing cancer, ending relationships and leaving "Today" – as well as advice from famous faces who inspire her, like Oscar-winner Viola Davis, self-help superstar Mel Robbins and Grammy-nominee Thomas Rhett.
"Often you need to see someone jump before you can because you're like, 'Is it really safe over there? I'm not sure,'" Kotb says. "It's like when Sandra Bullock adopted her children at our age, I knew it was possible. … When I was thinking about all the parts of my life that were the most meaningful, jumping into motherhood, or out of a job, or in or out of a relationship ... it takes courage to do it."
Hoda Kotb misses the 'Today' show 'every single day'
Without hesitation, Kotb will admit to missing "Today" and conversations with Guthrie and Jenna Bush Hager "every single day."
"Do I miss an interesting conversation? Absolutely," she says. "However, I also get to have these things that are changing me at a really kind of cellular level. So, I feel like the cup keeps getting filled up somehow."
At "Today," her life was "full of incredible conversations and great concerts," she says. "Your cup's so full that often there isn't room for regular life. What I found is that cup was empty, and it's not anymore. I feel myself, as I'm going through my days, feeling totally satisfied and full."
Hoda Kotb savors 'little conversations that are everything' with daughters
Exiting "Today" allowed Kotb to be a more present mom to her daughters Haley, 8, and Hope, 6.
"Hope said something to me the other day that was so moving and beautiful," Kotb recalls. While reading "Cinderella" to her daughter, Kotb says she closed the book and asked Hope, "What's it like to have diabetes?" Kotb revealed Hope's Type 1 diabetes diagnosis on "Today" in May.
"And she goes, 'Well, it hurts sometimes when I get poked, and sometimes I get upset because my friends get to have things I don't. And that's hard,'" Kotb says. "She goes, 'But then I think it's just life, and sometimes I wish that it would just all go away.'"
Hope then asked Kotb, "'What's it like for you?' And I go, 'For me?'" Kotb says. "She goes, 'Yeah, what's it like for you to have me?' And I said, 'It's another of God's reminders that I got the strongest kid ever. Like, I get to be your mom.'"
With less on her plate, Kotb's able to have these "little conversations that are everything," she says. "It just struck me. I get to see the world slow down."
Hoda Kotb went from 'a total phony in my relationships' to being 'all the way ready' for love
Hoda Kotb has written a new book, "Jump and Find Joy," to nudge readers in the direction of their dreams.
Kotb writes candidly of her romances in "Jump and Find Joy." She describes her relationship with University of New Orleans tennis coach Burzis Kanga as "fine." They wed in 2005, and Kotb filed for divorce in 2007.
"We had our ups and downs like everyone else, but for the most part, it was fine," Kotb writes. "But you don't build a great romance on fine. You don't get married on fine. Unless, of course, you're not really looking around and taking stock of what's actually in front of you, and you've convinced yourself that a simple, breezy relationship is more solid and permanent than it actually is."
Kotb shares her daughters with former fiancé Joel Schiffman. She announced they'd called off their engagement in 2022.
"Joel's a really nice person," Kotb writes. "I'm a really nice person. Sometimes, it's not that things are wrong, it's that they don't feel 100 percent right. I think when your partner is nice and there's chemistry, it's easy to overlook that you've been cruising along different paths. But when you decide to take a good look and compare road maps ... you can't avoid the truth."
Kotb recalls a pivotal moment in understanding her love life. She was speaking to a group during a Hoffman Institute retreat, and told them, "'I am a total phony in my relationships. ... I'm a pretender." Looking back, she says: "Hearing myself say those words? I thought I was going to throw up."
Hoda Kotb is "all the way ready" for her great love.
"I don't think I've ever really taken a deep dive into love," Kotb shares in her book. "I've had loving relationships, but I don't think I've ever trusted that a person 100 percent has me, and that's on me. It's a vulnerable place to be and comes with the risk of being hurt. But it's a risk I want to feel comfortable enough to take one day."
As of a Sept. 3 interview, Kotb hasn't been on any dates yet. But she knows a great love is on the horizon.
"Mine is coming and I know that," Kotb says. "And I'm not saying it because 'Yay, I really hope ...' I'm not hoping, I'm not wishing, I know.
"So when it is right and when he steps in, I'm ready, like all the way ready," Kotb continues. "I wasn't ready for parenthood until I was in my 50s. I was not really ready. And now I realize it's the right time to parent when you know things, when you aren't reacting like you were when you were 20 or 30, when everything made you mad or whatever. And I feel the same way about relationships. I've spent my whole life waiting, and that's OK, because what I realize is at the end is where the good stuff is. So I'm waiting for my good stuff."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Hoda Kotb was a 'total phony' in past romances, but not anymore
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