Hoda Kotb has had a long and successful career as a talk-show host, working at networks all over the country. Kotb is also raising two young daughters, which can make things hectic. She recently revealed how she stays connected with them — even while hosting the Today show each morning.
From local stations to hosting ‘Today,’ Hoda Kotb has done it all
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Hoda Kotb graduated from Virginia Tech with a degree in broadcast journalism and started working right away. She worked for CBS and ABC affiliate stations all over America, including Mississippi, Florida, and New Orleans, Louisiana.
In 1998, she joined NBC as a correspondent for Dateline NBC and all NBC News platforms. In 2007, Kotb was made the first host of Today‘s first fourth-hour broadcast; Kathie Lee Gifford was added to the program the following year.
In 2018, Kotb was named co-anchor of Today, along with Savannah Guthrie. She still hosts the fourth-hour broadcast, too, alongside Jenna Bush Hager.
Kotb has also written six books, including two children’s books, and hosts a podcast called Making Space with Hoda Kotb. She is clearly very busy, but she recently shared how she makes time for her daughters, Haley and Hope.
How does Hoda Kotb connect with her daughters every morning?
“Every morning I leave them a note and a map to find the note,” Kotb told People. “I draw cartoons, and then I hide it so they see it before they go to school,” she says. “Then a lot of the time I’m done with work and can pick them up in the afternoon. We’re eating dinner at 5, in the bath by 6, drying off at 6:30, in the room singing all their songs. It’s over, lights out, click, at 7, and I’m usually out by 7:30 because I have to get up at 3 a.m.”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do when they’re teenagers, but I’ve been digging this weird time for us. I’m on a child’s schedule!” she laughed.
Hoda Kotb’s appreciation of her family: ‘It delights me to know that I have Haley and Hope’
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Kotb also talked about how her family doesn’t exactly match up with the view of family she once had, but she wouldn’t have it any other way.
“I always imagined family as my mom, my dad, my brother, my sister,” she explained. “I envisioned it that way until I was 50. Imagine someone saying, ‘Hey, guess what? You’re actually going to have a whole other family.’ It still surprises me! It delights me to know that I have Haley and Hope. They fell asleep on me yesterday after having meltdowns, and I sang to them, and in that moment I was just thinking to myself, ‘I get to feel these things. We get to have this together.’ It blows my mind that I get to have this adorable little family that’s just right for me.”
While the Today host always knew she wanted a family, she wasn’t sure it was in the cards for her. After a divorce and a battle with breast cancer, Kotb assumed she would never have children of her own. However, she decided to adopt a baby girl in 2017. Haley is now 5. Two years later, she announced that she had adopted another girl: Hope, 3.
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