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Hoda Kotb Moved Out of Longtime NYC Apartment Weeks Before Announcing Shocking ‘Today’ Exit
Weeks before shocking the world with news of her Today departure, Hoda Kotb made another huge change in her life — moving out of her longtime New York City apartment.
On Thursday, September 26, Hoda, 60, announced that she will be leaving Today in early 2025 to spend more time with her two daughters, Haley and Hope. The family of three recently moved into a new home in the suburbs of New York City, she previously revealed on the talk show.
“Obviously I had my kiddos late in life, and I was thinking that they deserve a bigger piece of my time pie that I have,” Hoda said to her colleagues during Thursday’s broadcast. “I feel like we only have a finite amount of time. And so, with all that being said, this is the hardest thing in the world.”
Hoda welcomed Haley, 7, and Hope, 4, via adoption with ex-fiancé Joel Schiffman in 2017 and 2019, respectively.
“I’ve been weighing this decision for quite a while – Am I truly ready? But, my 60th birthday celebration on the Plaza felt like a shift. Like a massive, joyful YES, you are!” she said in a letter to Today staffers of her reason for leaving the show. “I saw it all so clearly: my broadcast career has been beyond meaningful, a new decade of my life lies ahead, and now my daughters and my mom need and deserve a bigger slice of my time pie. I will miss you all desperately, but I’m ready and excited.”
Hoda recently opened up about how she and her children were adjusting to living in their new home. The girls are attending a new school this year in their new neighborhood and the mom of two was very excited to take them to their first day.
“Everything changed like that,” she said during an episode of the talk show on September 4. “I have a whole new town and a whole new school, and all the new things. And we went for our first day of school.”
Hoda and her daughters walked together to the school and saw so many other kids from their new neighborhood along the way too.
“I carried coffee and I had sneakers and I walked with my kids to school like normal people! It was awesome!” she remarked. “I just loved doing it because I haven’t been able to do that, and it was so fun to walk my kids to school.”
“And I know that it’s like a privilege cause you gotta work, but I just thought, ‘You know what, sometimes chapters change you and you miss things. I’m gonna do it,’” Hoda added of taking her kids to school. “And to walk with them and all of a sudden, little kids started [appearing] — it was like a train of 10, 12 kids walking to school in a neighborhood. There’s something about, to me, like, we’ve had seven great years in the city with kids and that’s amazing, but I also think kids need to have their feet in the grass and in dirt.”
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