Today fans seemingly sensed sparks flying between Hoda Kotb and one of Hollywood’s biggest stars.
“How do you feel about viewers shipping you and Kevin Costner after he appeared on Today last month, and have the two of you connected since?” a fan asked Kotb, 59, on the Tuesday, July 9, episode of Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen. According to the TV personality, she had “never, ever heard” of her and Costner’s pairing until that night.
“That was unbelievable,” she quipped while chatting about her WWHL appearance on the Wednesday, July 10, episode of Today With Hoda & Jenna.
The pair’s shipping is something Jenna Bush Hager said she “did know” about. “People were coming up to me on the streets,” she told Kotb. “I’m telling you, people were like, ‘You should set up Hoda and Kevin Costner.’ And I was like, ‘Wow, I didn’t realize they were flirting behind my back.’”
Though Kotb assured her cohost there was “no flirting” between her and the actor, the show’s crew surprised her with an edited version of her and Costner’s interactions from their June 20 Hoda & Jenna interview set to sexy jazz music. “Y’all are ridiculous,” Kotb told her off-camera colleagues.
Kotb, however, did go on to praise Costner’s down-to-earth nature. “I did love when he had his people who were here and they were just talking about him, they were like, ‘He is so funny,’” she shared. “And they were describing, like, he likes to eat baked beans out of the can. Like, he’s just a regular person.”
Bush Hager, 42, proceeded to joke, “The baked beans out of a can is what turns you on?” to which Kotb replied, “No. I just like that he wasn’t fancy. I thought that was really cool.”
Bush Hager wrapped up the conversation by declaring she was going to “reach out to him later today” to hopefully set them up.
Kotb was previously married to Burzis Kanga from 2005 to 2008 and ended her engagement to Joel Schiffman — with whom she shares daughters Haley, 7, and Hope, 5 — in January 2022 after eight years of dating. Costner, for his part, shares his seven kids with his ex-wives Cindy Silva and Christine Baumgartner and ex Bridget Rooney.
While Costner sparked dating rumors with Jewel following his split from Baumgartner, 50, last year, which he later shut down, Kotb has opened up about finding new romance in her own life. Back in April, she confessed that she once asked a celebrity guest on Today for their phone number.
“We asked a guest ’cause we liked this guest for me, but this guest was busy, taken and had children,” she explained. “And so, we asked about friends. So, we essentially asked for a number on the show, which I have.”
The following month, Kotb revealed that she was going on a third date with a guy Bush Hager set her up with. “I think it was just the kind of fun of talking about something that wasn’t kids and wasn’t work,” she said of her romantic outing. “It was just life, and I missed that. And he’s really handsome.”
