Hoda Kotb isn’t taking a step back from work amid her daughter’s ongoing health issues.
Despite reports claiming the “Today” anchor “has been reconfiguring her approach to work” to be more of a “hands-on” mom, a source close to the show says Kotb isn’t cutting back.
“There’s zero truth to this,” the insider tells Pvnew exclusively.
In fact, another source told us that she was in New Orleans for a Hoda and Jenna Bush Hager.
The clarification comes after Kotb took a nearly three-week hiatus from the NBC morning show after her 3-year-old daughter, Hope, was hospitalized.
Although viewers were left in the dark about the reasoning for Kotb’s absence at first, she later revealed Hope “was in the ICU for a few days and in the hospital for a little more than a week.”
While she hasn’t shared the nature of Hope’s health scare, the 58-year-old recently revealed she is “getting better.”
“To watch her go through a difficult time at just 3 years old is really tough for any parent because you’re helpless,” Kotb said this week during an episode of Southern Living’s “Biscuits & Jam” podcast.
“But I think you realize just how incredibly resilient and strong she is. I think sometimes you learn life’s lessons from the most amazing places.”
Although Kotb, who is also mom to 6-year-old daughter Haley, was a worried mess through it all, her young daughter was able to look on the bright side of things.
“Hope said, ‘You know, I think God put me here to teach people things,’” she recalled from their hospital stay. “I said, ‘What? What? What?’ She said, ‘Yeah, because my brain’s pretty big, so I think I’m supposed to teach people things.’”
She gushed, “It’s like, [we] learn from our kids. And all we have to do is model; we don’t have to teach anything. Just be you … and then learn from them.”
Kotb and her ex Joel Schiffman adopted Haley in 2017 and Hope two years later. The pair split in 2022 after eight years together.
