Kathie Lee Gifford is excited for pal Hoda Kotb’s next chapter amid news of her departure from “Today.”
“Bittersweet news as my dear friend @hodakotb steps away from the Today Show,” Gifford, 71, wrote on X Friday.
“Her warmth, laughter, and incredible spirit have brightened our mornings and touched countless hearts. Here’s to new adventures!”
Gifford accompanied the sweet message with a few throwback pictures of her and Kotb at the news desk.
The actress, 71, and Kotb, 60, co-hosted the fourth hour of “Today” for 11 years until Gifford left the morning show in 2019.
Kotb tearfully announced her own exit from the morning show on Thursday after 26 years of working for NBC.
The beloved broadcaster shared the news while seated alongside co-hosts Jenna Bush Hager, Savannah Guthrie, Sheinelle Jones, Al Roker and Craig Melvin, who all had tears in their eyes.
Kotb explained that her recent milestone birthday put her life into perspective, realizing she needed to “turn the page” and focus more on being a mom to daughters Haley, 7, and Hope, 4.
“I decided this is the right time for me to kind of move on. And so with all that being said, this is the hardest thing in the world,” she explained.
“I’m not gonna be here past the first of the year. I’m gonna stay in the NBC family, but it’s kind of a big deal for me.”
However, Kotb told her co-workers-turned-friends that they weren’t getting rid of her anytime soon.
“I don’t know what to say except for, ‘You don’t leave family,’ so I’m gonna be haunting you in your lives for a long, long time,” she said to Guthrie and Bush Hager.
Later on in the episode, Bush Hager explained her initial reaction to hearing the news.
“Hoda told me just a couple days ago, and when she told me, my first reaction was from my gut and it was almost crazy. … I said, ‘No, you can’t leave because what we have here, with all of these people,” she said through tears on “Today With Hoda & Jenna.”
“It is magical and powerful and it feels like that here, and you’re who I come to when I’m feeling joyful, when I’m feeling unsure, you are who I come to, and you believed in me first.”
A source told Page Six that Kotb made her decision after moving to the suburbs of New York City to give her daughters a more “normal” life.
“It’s heartbreaking for everyone, but Hoda wants to be able to walk her kids to school,” the insider told us.
Although the TV personality had been “contemplating it for a really long time,” we’re told it was still a “shock” for everyone at the network.
