Former Today show host Hoda Kotb has opened up about her split from her longtime partner and fiancé, New York financier Joel Schiffman.
Kotb and Schiffman began dating in 2013 and adopted two daughters over the course of their relationship. However, the 61-year-old announced in January 2022 that they had ended their engagement and decided they were “better off as friends.”
Kotb made the revelation in her new book, Jump and Find Joy: Embracing Change in Every Season of Life. In excerpts shared by Today.com, she explained that the moment of truth came to her while she was attending a one-week retreat at the Hoffman Institute.
According to the website, the program of its kind offers “evidence-based transformational work proven to deliver lasting results.”
While attending the retreat and sharing with others why she was there, it occurred to Kotb that “everything had shifted,” including her relationship with Schiffman. “Our ‘us’ felt different,” she wrote.
“I knew I could say that I wanted to better myself or something vague like that. But when I looked around at all the people who’d shared their raw truth, I felt so moved by their honesty,” she explained in the book. “They deserved the same from me. So, I said it. I told the truth about why I had come. ‘I am a total phony in my relationships,’ I said. ‘I’m a pretender.’”
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Kotb said that her decision to “be real” in that moment was “one of the best ten-second decisions” of her life.
“I think sometimes you know that a relationship is—I would say good—but you think to yourself it’s not deepening,” she explained to Today.com. “So, you continue along on the relationship, and I think the truth of the matter is sometimes you have to say to yourself, like, I feel like I’m an optimist. And so, when you’re an optimist, you want to make things work, and sometimes, things don’t.”
Kotb noted that she loved Schiffman then and continues to love him, but had to remind herself that it was a different kind of love. The former couple still amicably co-parent their two daughters, Haley Joy and Hope Catherine, adopted in 2017 and 2019, respectively.
A post shared by Hoda Kotb (@hodakotb)
“You can still love and admire someone and not want to be in a relationship, a long-term relationship that way, personal relationship,” she explained. “It just was an epiphany for me, and it took courage for me to say it. And when I did, I felt like. ‘OK, there it is.’”
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However, Kotb says that despite their split, that she and Schiffman will always be connected, if for no other reason than for their kids.
“We will co-parent in a beautiful way, but I also think our ‘us’ is more of a, like, we’re dear friends now,” she added. “And that’s beautiful, and it’s enjoyable and it feels right. We were laughing the other day just in hysterics, and I feel like this is the right relationship for us to have.”
