Selena Gomez’s desire to become a mother despite her fertility struggle is something Hoda Kotb closely relates to.
“I think it was something she always dreamt that would happen. You know how you kind of write your story in your head? [Like,] ‘I’ll get married sometime here or there or at this age, and then I’ll have kids,’ and you can kind of imagine it. And I think that was probably the toughest part, is like, you know that you can see it,” Kotb, 60, said on the Tuesday, September 10, episode of Today With Hoda & Jenna while reacting to Gomez’s revelation that she can’t carry her own children.
“But because she’s so mature and just cool, she said that there are other ways — she had something she had to grieve for a while — but then, she realized there are other ways of having a family,” Kotb stated. “And she says she does plan to start with surrogacy or adoption.”
Kotb adopted her daughters, Haley, 7, and Hope, 5, in 2017 and 2019, respectively, with her ex-fiancé Joel Schiffman. Noting that “families come in so many different shapes and sizes,” Kotb declared that a person’s kids “are your kids, a hundred thousand percent,” regardless of how they were welcomed.
The Today personality opened up about her own fertility struggles on the August 12 episode of her “Making Space” podcast, revealing that she learned she was unable to have children as a result of her 2007 breast cancer battle.
“I do remember that even the doctor said to me then, you know, one of the sort of side effects, especially at your age, which was in my 40s, early 40s, is you won’t be able to have children. And I was like, ‘Wait, what?’” she stated. “So this thing not only put limits on my life, but killed a dream.”
Similarly, Gomez confirmed that she is also unable to carry children due to health reasons in her Vanity Fair cover story published on Monday, September 9. “I have a lot of medical issues that would put my life and the baby’s in jeopardy,” she shared. “That was something I had to grieve for a while.”
The Only Murders in the Building star was diagnosed with lupus in 2013 and bipolar disorder in 2018. She also underwent a kidney transplant in 2017.
Gomez told the outlet that she is “in a much better place” with the news now. “I find it a blessing that there are wonderful people willing to do surrogacy or adoption, which are both huge possibilities for me,” she said. “It made me really thankful for the other outlets for people who are dying to be moms. I’m one of those people. I’m excited for what that journey will look like, but it’ll look a little different. At the end of the day, I don’t care. It’ll be mine. It’ll be my baby.”
Earlier this year, Gomez told TIME that she had planned to adopt a child by the time she was 35 if she hadn’t met the right partner. However, she confirmed in December 2023 that she and music producer Benny Blanco had secretly been dating for six months.
Gomez went on to tell Vanity Fair that her family is not pressuring her and Blanco, 36, to take the next steps in their relationship. “We always make sure we’re protecting what we have, but there’s no rules,” she explained. “I want him to always be himself. I always want to be myself.”
