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Hoda Kotb is officially on the next leg of her journey. The beloved NBC personality, 60, had her last day on TODAY and Today With Hoda & Jenna on Friday, January 10, 2025. Prior to leaving the show, Kotb hinted at wanting more time in her personal life — particularly with her two daughters, Hope and Haley Joy. Following her 60 birthday, she said during an interview on the show, she “kind of knew that it was time to try something different, and that means, you know, having my kids ride sidecar next to me more often than they have been.”
She will be replaced in her TODAY duties by NBC journalist Craig Melvin. A rotating panel of substitutes will sit in for her on Hoda & Jenna until a permanent replacement is chosen. Amid the news that she’s moving on, does she have a current partner? Who was Kotb involved with previously? We’ve got the lowdown on her romantic history and relationships below.
Joel Schiffman
Hoda was in a long-term relationship with fiancé Joel Schiffman until they parted ways in early 2022. According to PEOPLE, Schiffman works in finance, and the former couple met in 2013 at a Wall Street event she wasn’t particularly enthused about attending. “I asked someone from the place — I asked, ‘Will you find out his situation?’ ” she confessed during a 2015 episode of Watch What Happens Live. “Because I didn’t know anything about him. I knew he didn’t have a wedding ring, but that’s all I knew. Then she emailed him and he emailed me and asked me out on a date.”
They kept their relationship away from the public eye until 2015 in order to protect it. Hoda and Joel adopted two daughters, Haley in 2017, and Hope in 2019. In November 2019, Schiffman proposed during a beachside dinner, with a planned wedding for a year later. However, the COVID-19 pandemic hit, putting a pin in their plans. In 2022, they announced their separation. The duo continues to peacefully co-parent their children and according to Kotb, they remain friends. “Joel is one of the best people I know,” she declared during an August 2024 episode of the Jamie Kern Lima Show. “He really is a great human being. And I feel like I’m a great human being. But sometimes two great human beings together isn’t enough to make it work.”.
Burzis Kanga
According to Living New Orleans, Kotb married University of New Orleans tennis coach Burzis Kanga in 2005. “I met him about a year and a half after I came to New Orleans at a fund-raiser for the American Heart Association’s Valentine’s Day and we were both single,” she told the outlet during a 2006 interview. “And of course, I had moved up to New York, but later we ended up connecting again.” She told the outlet at the time that married life had been “great.” “We love just kind of knocking around New York, doing some Broadway plays, going out to eat,” she said.
However, it wasn’t meant to be, and the former couple divorced three years later in 2008.