Hoda Kotb has revealed the real reason she stepped down from the Today show.
The longtime host announced her exit last year after 26 years at NBC, saying at the time, “It was time for me to turn the page at 60, and to try something new.”
Kotb also explained that spending time with her young daughters, Haley, eight, and Hope, six, was also an important factor in her decision.
Now, in a new interview with People magazine, Kotb explains that her youngest daughter, whom she shares with ex-fiancé Joel Schiffman, is living with type 1 diabetes.
Type 1 diabetes, also known as juvenile diabetes or insulin-dependent diabetes, occurs when the body cannot produce a hormone called insulin, which controls blood glucose. It is an autoimmune disease unrelated to diet or lifestyle.
Those living with the condition must inject themselves with insulin either manually, using an insulin pen, or with a pump that continuously drip feeds insulin. There is currently no cure.
“It’s kind of constant care for Hope. We’re monitoring her 24/7,” Kotb told People, calling her daughter a “trooper” for dealing with the condition.
“She was getting shots — four or five a day — every day for a year. Now she is getting them less frequently because we have some other means to get her what she needs, but there’s a lot to it. Some kids can have sweets and she can’t. If she’s up in the night, we have to take care of her at night.”
Kotb added: “She is a happy, healthy, rambunctious, amazing kid, and we have to watch her. Diabetes is a part of her, but not all of her. I hope it shapes her but never defines her.”
Kotb said her early morning duties as Today co-host, which necessitated her waking up at 3:15 a.m. every day, meant she wasn’t able to provide her daughter with the level of personal care she wanted.
“I really wanted to and needed to be here to watch over her. So, whenever she needs anything, and it can happen at night, multiple times, I’m up — I’m up up up,” she said. “But I would never, ever want Hope to one day grow up and say, ‘Oh, my mom left her job because [of me].’ It wasn’t that alone. But if you look at it cumulatively, it was a part of that decision.”
Kotb joined NBC in 1998 as a correspondent for Dateline. In 2007, she became co-host of the fourth hour of Today, which is now known as Today with Hoda and Jenna. Kotb and Savannah Guthrie have co-anchored Today since 2018, marking the show’s first all-female anchor team.
Hours after announcing her exit from Today, Realtor.com revealed that she was leaving New York City to live in her new $2.8 million home in the upmarket New York suburb of Brownsville. Kotb opened up about the move during a previous episode of Today last September.
“Everything changed like that. I have a whole new town and a whole new school and all the new things,” Kotb — who used to live in the Upper West Side — explained. “We went for our first day of school, I carried a coffee and I had sneakers [on], and I walked my kids to school like normal people. It was awesome.”
Kotb appears on The Kelly Clarkson Show this week. Her appearance immediately sparked rumors about her potential as a replacement host on the daytime talk show as Clarkson reportedly looks to step down.
