Hoda Kotb says she made her bombshell decision to leave the Today show during her birthday party in August.
During an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Kotb explained the moment she realized it was time to move on—a decision which she revealed in an emotional announcement late last month. “When I turned 60, something weird happened, man,” Kotb told Fallon.
“I turned 60 and we had this beautiful party at the Today show, and I looked out at the sea of all the people who came and beautiful signs and so many well wishes. And I knew in my heart, like, this is it.”
She said that she thought to herself: “This is what the mountaintop must feel like. Like I had never had that feeling before.”
Kotb had also mentioned the effect of turning 60 on-air two weeks ago where she made the announcement that she was stepping down from the show in early 2025. At the time, she said the milestone had been a “monumental moment” and that it was now “time to turn the page” and give her children “a bigger piece of my time pie.”
“I think I’m doing this, like, repotting thing,” she said on the Tonight show. “You know when you pull yourself up by the roots and you’re kind of dangling and you’re like, ‘Oh my God, what am I doing, what’s happening,’ but you know you’re going to land kind of in fertile ground?”
Kotb also said she usually wakes up at around 3:15 a.m. to do the show. “Your life is going to completely change—this is fantastic!” Fallon said. “You’re gonna go to concerts! You’re gonna go out on dates, you’re gonna go to restaurants! You’re gonna watch bad TV. You’re gonna do whatever the heck you want because you don’t have to wake up at three in the morning.”
After announcing her departure, Puck reported that NBC had tried to cut Kotb’s salary—which the outlet said was over $20 million—amid declining ratings for morning shows. A source close to Kotb subsequently told The Daily Beast that salary “played no role in Hoda’s decision” to walk away from the show.
