Jenna Bush Hager gushed over an early Christmas present she received from Hoda Kotb’s daughter Haley.
“Too soon? Too sweet!” Hager, 42, wrote via Instagram Story on Monday, October 21, of the early Christmas gift she received from Kotb’s eldest daughter, Haley: an adorable, personalized penguin ornament, complete with a glittery scarf and earmuffs and “Jenna” written across its white belly.
Hager’s photo of the ornament also included the gift tag, which read, “To Jenna, From Haley,” in the 7-year-old’s handwriting. (Kotb, 60, shares Haley and daughter Hope, 5, with ex Joel Schiffman.)
Earlier this week, the Today cohosts — including Savannah Guthrie — reunited while attending Taylor Swift’s first of three Eras Tour concerts in Miami with their families. Guthrie was accompanied by husband Michael Feldman and children Vale, 10, and Charley, 7, for the Friday, October 18, show at Hard Rock Stadium. Kotb brought Hope and Haley, while Hager brought daughters Mila, 11, and Poppy Louise, 9.
The coworkers and their children posed for a rare photo together which was shared via Instagram in a joint post between Kotb, Guthrie and the Today show. Kotb captioned the photo, “SWIFTIES!!!”
Kotb announced in September that she would be departing the Today show in early 2025 after nearly three decades with NBC overall. She has been with Today since 2007.
“I realized that it was time for me to turn the page at 60, and to try something new. This is the right time for me to move on,” Kotb explained at the time, citing her children as a major influence on her decision to leave and transition into another, currently unspecified role at NBC.
“My first reaction was from my gut and it was almost crazy. … I said, ‘No, you can’t leave,’” Bush Hager said during the episode. “You’re who I come to when I’m feeling joyful, when I’m feeling unsure. You are who I come to and you believed in me first. We have a lot of bosses and I love them, but this lady, on October 28, 2013 — I looked it up — said, ‘Hey, wanna come sit next to me? There’s room.’”
As for Guthrie, she exclusively told Us Weekly of her cohost’s departure, “Hoda and I have had this discussion for years and years. We’re dear friends and we have a lot of similarities. We’re basically in the same phase of life.”
Guthrie added that she understood Kotb’s family-oriented decision. “We have these little kids that we both feel so lucky that we got to have later in life,” she shared. “It makes a lot of sense to me what she has decided.”
Read the full article here
