The Wednesday, May 29, episode of Today With Hoda & Jenna was a bittersweet one for cohost Hoda Kotb.
“Today would have been my dad’s birthday,” Kotb, 59, told Jenna Bush Hager at the top of the episode, adding, “I’m sure everyone who’s lost a parent at some point always knows when the birthdays roll around, no matter how many years it’s been.”
Hoda noted that she was thinking of her father, Abdel Kader Kotb, while getting ready for the day that morning. “I wrote down how old he would have been today. I was doing math,” she shared. “He would have been 91 today. Isn’t that crazy when you think about [it]?” (Her father died at age 52 in 1985.)
Bush Hager, 42, pointed out that when you encounter a day meaningful to a lost loved one, it “takes you back to where you were” when it happened. Hoda agreed with her statement, stating, “It’s funny how you mark time from there. It’s like, ‘How many years has it been? How many [birthdays]?’ You know? You remember all of the things.”
In addition to reminiscing on her father’s passing, Hoda began to choke up when she brought her daughters — Haley, 7, and Hope, 4 — into the discussion. “I was actually thinking about him with the girls,” she stated, to which Bush Hager said Hoda’s father would be “so, so proud” of her and her girls.
Hoda adopted her kids in 2017 and 2019 with her ex-fiancé Joel Schiffman. Her father never got to meet her daughters as he died of a heart attack during her junior year of college at Virginia Tech.
“My brother [Adel] runs in, and I was like, ‘Oh, my God, my brother always said he was gonna crash Tri Delt formals, like, he and his buddy did it,” Hoda recalled of the moment she learned of her dad’s passing on a June 2021 episode of Minnie Driver’s “Minnie Questions” podcast. “And he said, ‘Come outside.’ And I said, ‘What?’ He goes, ‘Come outside, I need to talk to you, and I go, ‘No.’ I said, ‘You need to tell me,’ and he said, ‘Dad had a heart attack, and he died.’ … It was like you couldn’t even compute what was going on.”
Koda previously explained that her dad’s passing helped her overcome insecurities about being an older mom during a December 2023 episode of Hoda & Jenna. “I am so happy and fulfilled with my decision that I don’t feel any ounce of shame or ‘ouch.’ Because my dad died when I was in college. You get your parent for as long as you get your parent, and they lay a foundation that you cannot shake,’” she tearfully shared at the time.
In the absence of Hoda’s father, her daughters have built a close bond with her mother, Sameha Kotb. “This happened about 10 minutes ago, my girls … My mom … Oh my heart❤️,” Hoda captioned sweet Instagram pics of Haley and Hope giving their grandmother hugs and kisses earlier this month.
On the Tuesday, May 28, episode of Hoda & Jenna, Hoda also shared that she, her kids and her mom enjoyed a “little vacation” together over Memorial Day weekend, during which Haley and Hope adorably put on “Taylor Swift shows” for the two of them.
