On Thursday, Hoda Kotb, the widely beloved and perpetually ebullient Today show co-host, sat on the Studio 1A couch among her teary-eyed colleagues and revealed that she would be leaving the program early next year. In the subgenre of Today farewells, this was about as genuinely harmonious and well-composed an exit as the network suits could have expected—a far cry from the infamously awkward Ann Curry departure, obviously, to say nothing of the Matt Lauer cancellation that presaged Hoda’s own ascension to the chair. Tears and praise and declarations of love flowed unencumbered. Savannah Guthrie called Hoda “our sunshine,” Al Roker called her “our North Star.”
Hoda had decided to step down in August, she said, upon turning 60. She had reached “the top of the wave” and decided it was time to give her children “a bigger piece of my time pie.” Of course, all that is indisputably true. Hoda is going out on top—indeed, thanks to the…
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