Hoda Kotb is saying goodbye to “Today.”
The 60-year-old journalist announced Thursday morning that she’s leaving the NBC news program.
She’s been with NBC for 26 years.
“As I write this, my heart is all over the map,” she wrote in a letter to “TODAY” staff. “I know I’m making the right decision, but it’s a painful one. And you all are the reason why.”
“They say two things can be right at the same time, and I’m feeling that so deeply right now. I love you and it’s time for me to leave the show.”
Kotb shared the news in-person to her co-anchors Savannah Guthrie, Al Roker, Jenna Bush Hager, Craig Melvin and Sheinelle Jones.
“I have spent 26 years at NBC,” she said. “I just turned 60, and it was such a monumental moment for me, because I started thinking about that decade. I realized that it was time for me to turn the page at 60 and to try something new.”
“I decided that this is the right time to move on,” Kotb shared, adding that she wants to spend more time with her daughters Haley, 7, and Hope, 4.
“Obviously I had my kids late in life and they deserve a bigger piece of my time pie that I have,” she went on. “With all that being said, this is the hardest thing in the world.”
“I’m gonna be here past the first of the year, and I’m gonna stay in the NBC family,” Kotb said. “But it’s kind of a big deal for me.”
Kotb currently co-anchors the first two hours of “Today” with Guthrie, 52.
She replaced Matt Lauer in January 2018 after Lauer was fired by NBC over sexual harassment and misconduct allegations.
She’s also the co-host of the 10 a.m. show “Today with Hoda and Jenna” alongside Bush Hager, 42. She previously did the show with Kathie Lee Gifford from 2008 until Gifford’s exit in 2019.
Kotb first joined the NBC family in 1998 as a correspondendent for “Dateline.” She was added to the “Today” team ten years later.