Hoda Kotb Says 5-Year-Old Daughter Hope Is ‘Thriving’ After Last Year’s Health Crisis

Hoda Kotb says her 5-year-old daughter, Hope, is “finding steady footing” more than a year after a troubling medical crisis.

Speaking to People in an interview published online Wednesday, the “Today” co-host shared an update on the girl’s condition.

“We’re in a place where Hope is thriving,” she said. “She is improving, we’re watching her, and I think that as time goes on, we’ll have a better handle on it, but we’re already seeing great differences.”

In early 2023, Kotb took two weeks off from her show amid Hope’s health crisis. The journalist has never publicly disclosed her daughter’s diagnosis, but has said that medical professionals were “constantly” checking on the girl for a time.

Kotb told People that her children were a major factor in her decision to step down from her “Today” role in 2025, following nearly two decades with the NBC show. The mother of two announced the move in September, about a month after turning 60.

“It does make more sense to stay at NBC. I’m financially secure and I would have job security. I mean, why would you ever not do that?” she told People. “But I’ve been watching my kids and I was thinking to myself, I wonder what I’m missing?”

She went on to note: “Something has to give if you want excellence. If you’re going to be excellent at work, something has to give at home. And if you want to be excellent at home, I mean excellent, and do all the things, something has to give at work. It can’t be equal.”

Kotb ― who is also a mother to daughter Haley, 7 ― cited her recent milestone birthday as another impetus for making a change, saying that she “wanted this decade to be different.”

“I looked at my time like a pie. I was like, this is how much time I get, and now what am I going to do with it and how am I going to carve it up? And I wanted it to be filled with more of them,” she said, referring to her children.

Read more on Kotb at People.