Hoda Kotb is ready for her new normal.
Nearly two weeks after the longtime Today cohost announced she will be leaving the morning show early next year, the journalist shed new light on her decision to walk away after more than 16 years.
“I think I’m doing this like repotting thing,” Hoda told Jimmy Fallon during an Oct. 7 appearance 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 in fertile ground.”
While Hoda’s Sept. 26 announcement might have surprised Today fans, she revealed the exact moment she knew she needed to leave occurred earlier this summer.
“When I turned 60, something weird happened, man,” she explained. “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, man.’ This is what the mountaintop must feel like. Like I’d never had that feeling before.”