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Hoda Kotb Reveals How She Really Feels After Her Breakup With Ex Joel Schiffman


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Hoda Kotb soaks up every moment with her daughters Hope Catherine and Haley Joy when she’s not on the Today show. While she may be busy juggling career and parenting responsibilities, she also isn’t ruling out the possibility of falling in love again.

In late January, Hoda revealed on Today’s fourth hour that she and her fiancé Joel Schiffman had called off their engagement and were no longer a couple. The two got together in the summer of 2013 and after six years of dating got engaged in November 2019. Though Hoda and Joel had wanted to be married “sooner than later,” the coronavirus pandemic delayed their wedding date a few times. Hoda shared that she and the financier made the decision over the 2021 holidays to be “friends and parents.”

Most recently, at the Today show's 70th anniversary celebration, she opened up to Daily Mail about her current dating life. According to the Making Space podcast host, it’s not top of mind for her. “No, I think especially when you have kids, you take a beat [after going through a breakup],” she told the outlet on May 11. “I'm focusing on them.”

Photo credit: Jeff Kravitz - Getty Images
Photo credit: Jeff Kravitz - Getty Images

She also shared how she feels about the breakup several months later. “We all make choices that are for us, and I feel strong and I feel good about my decision,” she said to the publication. “I'm just kind of marching on with life.”

The I Really Needed This Today author's words echoed what she had said previously when announcing their breakup initially on air. “I feel like often we share the joyous pieces of our lives … and the difficult parts sometimes [we] just want to forget about,” Hoda told Today cohost Jenna Bush Hager. “But I think a lot of women know what this feels like in this moment to be changing course in life and I feel really brave in this moment … Sometimes in your life you just have to say the truth.”

Hoda elaborated further to People on what she envisions her future looking like and she's certain there's someone out there for her.

“I haven’t really thought about who I would see myself with, but I do have to say something,” she told the outlet. “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.”

Hoda continued: "It's not hard. It's not covered over. So, I know at some point and I can see it, it will happen. When? I can't say but I assured her I said, 'Oh, don't worry. No worries. I said I'm gonna be just fine.'"

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