Charles Sykes/Invision/AP/Shutterstock
Who Is Hoda Kotb’s Ex-Husband Burzis Kanga? Get to Know the ‘Today’ Host’s Former Spouse
Today host Hoda Kotb has shared so many parts of her personal life with her fans and viewers on the show. The NBC personality married Burzis Kanga in 2005. Two years later, she filed for divorce amid her cancer battle. Keep scrolling to get to know Hoda’s ex-husband.
Who Is Hoda Kotb’s Ex-Husband, Burzis Kanga?
Hoda shared details about her marriage to the former tennis coach after they wed. In a June 2006 interview with New Orleans Living, she revealed that Burzis was a “New Orleans boy.” He had lived in the city for 26 years before meeting his future wife at a fundraiser for the American Heart Association.
They dated on and off for several years before Hoda moved to New York City to work for NBC. After his residence was destroyed during Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Burzis moved to the Big Apple to be with his beloved. He had worked as the head coach for men’s and women’s tennis at the University of New Orleans in the years prior. The pair walked down the aisle in December 2005 in Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic.
Hoda was diagnosed with breast cancer in February 2007. That same month, she filed for divorce from her husband of two years. Their divorce was finalized in 2008.
Is Hoda Kotb Single?
In 2013, the Where We Belong author met Joel Schiffman at a Wall Street event. After quietly dating for two years, they went public with their relationship. During their romance, Hoda and Joel adopted two daughters, Haley and Hope. She reflected on meeting the financier and starting a family after beating cancer.
“Cancer shaped me, but it did not define me. It’s part of me, but not all of me,” the morning news personality said during an October 2017 speech at an event for the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. “It just goes to show you that in my early 40s, I was sick, I was getting divorced and I was in a job that I wasn’t suited for,” she added, “I’m now 53 years old, I have a guy I love, a baby who is the light of my life. She’s so sweet! And [I have] a job that’s pretty cool, too, so 53 is awesome.”
Hoda announced her engagement to the businessman in November 2019. After postponing their wedding several times due to the COVID-19 pandemic, she shared during a January 2022 episode of Today that they had broken up.
“Joel and I have had a lot of prayerful and meaningful conversations over the holidays and we decided that we’re better as friends and parents than we are as an engaged couple, so we decided we are going to start this new year … on our new path as loving parents to our adorable, delightful children, and as friends,” she told viewers during the broadcast.
As the pair continue to coparent their two kids, Hoda is hopeful that her search for lasting love will ultimately end in happiness.
“I haven’t really thought about who I would see myself with, but I do have to say something,” she said at a May 2022 event at The Paley Center for Media in New York City. “My sister even said and asked me at one point, ‘Are you afraid to be by yourself?’ And I said to her, ‘I’m not going to be by myself.’ And I don’t know why I said it so clearly, but I actually knew that my heart is open. I have an open heart.”
