Jenna Bush Hager didn’t see Hoda Kotb’s retirement coming.
More than two months after the Today show host announced she would be stepping back from her role, her fourth hour cohost detailed how she took the news.
“I mean, to be totally honest, I was shocked,” Jenna admitted to guest Matt Rogers during the Dec. 5 episode of her Open Book with Jenna podcast. “Shocked.”
Hoda, 60, announced her departure on air Sept. 26, citing that she wanted to spend more time with her daughters Haley, 7, and Hope, 5. And while Jenna, 43, has been working alongside Hoda on their segment for five years, she admitted she didn’t have a lot of time to process the news before it became public.
“I found out, like, the week before,” she continued. “She told me as soon as she’d made the decision, but it was—you know, Hoda does things. And this is why I admire her so much, is that she really listens to herself, and therefore she makes decisions which can feel surprising to others and just right for her.”
But as Hoda’s final day on air approaches—her last day will be Jan. 10—Jenna has come to terms with losing her cohost.
“Now that I’ve had time to process it, I’m like, ‘Oh yeah, I totally get it,’” she added. “But I was saying when everybody’s like, ‘Oh my God, congratulations,’ it’s like, I feel like I’ve been dumped. Not really, because she’s choosing herself. I get that. But my heart was—is broken a little.”
Jenna isn’t the only one who is finding Hoda’s departure difficult to work through. After all, Savannah Guthrie—who coanchors the first hour of the NBC show with Hoda—previously told E! News her friend is “irreplaceable.”
Still, Savannah assures that Craig Melvin will be more than capable to fill in during the first hour.
“I think we’re so lucky because we do have such a great bench at NBC," she told E! News in October. “We’re not just one person or two people. We’re a whole ensemble, a whole family. I feel really good that the show is solid and that we’re in great things.”
Keep reading for the cohost’s cutest photos from over the years…
Sheinelle Jones
The cohost of the third hour of Today shares son Kayin as well as twins Uche and Clara with her late husband Uche Ojeh, who passed away in May 2025 after a courageous battle with brain cancer.
“With all three of my children, I try to show them that they're ALL a team, and they have to take care of each other," Sheinelle wrote in a 2015 essay for Today. “At the same time, I'm learning that they each like to know they're special on their own."
Craig Melvin
Three years after the anchor married fellow broadcaster Lindsay Czarniak in 2011, he earned his most cherished title yet: father.
And now, he seizes every opportunity to gush about their son Delano and daughter Sybil.
"When I wake up in the morning," Melvin said to his son during a May 2024 episode of Today, "part of the reason I work so hard is for you and your sister."
Jenna Bush Hager
The Today with Jenna & Friends cohost and her husband Henry Hager are proud parents to kids Mila, Poppy and Hal.
As she put it during a March 2025 episode of the morning show, “I’m pretty sure I’ve come to terms that three, even though it’s an imperfect number, it’s the perfect number for our household."
Hoda Kotb
"Another Halloween in the books," wrote the former host as she celebrated the day with her daughter Haley Joy.
She is also mom to daughter Hope Catherine.
Lester Holt
The former NBC Nightly News anchor shares sons Stefan Holt and Cameron Holt with his wife Carol Hagen.
But more recently, he became a proud "granddude" to three grandchildren: Henry, Samuel and James.
“When my daughter-in-law was pregnant with her first baby ... she said, ‘Well, what do you guys want to be called?’" Holt said on The Kelly Clarkson Show in 2021. "I said, ‘I think I want to be ‘Granddude’ because ‘grand,’ it bows to the fact that I’m older. But ‘dude’ says, ‘I still got a little bit. I still got a little,’ you know?"
Carson Daly
In 2020, the anchor and his wife Siri Pinter welcomed their fourth child, Goldie. The little one joined the couple's older kids Jackson, Etta and London.
Kathie Lee
Hoda's former cohost is a loving mommy to her own two children, Cassidy Gifford and Cody Gifford, with her late husband Frank Gifford.
Savannah Guthrie
The TV personality is a mom to two little ones, Vale Guthrie Feldman and Charles "Charley" Max Feldman, with her husband Mike Feldman.
Al Roker
The anchor and his wife Deborah Roberts are parents to Leila Roker and Nicholas Albert Roker.
Willie Geist
The anchor of Sunday Today has been married to his wife Christina Geist since 2003. They're parents to two children, George William Geist and Lucie Joy Geist.