Hoda Kotb

Hoda Kotb is a TV host and a news anchor for American Television. She is mostly known as co-host of the Today Show at NBC together with Kathie Lee Gifford. An Egyptian American, she won a Daytime Emmy Award in 2010 as part of the Today Show team. Kotb is also a correspondent for Dateline NBC. 

Hoda was born in 1964 in Norman, Oklahoma and raised in Morgantown, West Virginia and Alexandria, Virginia. Her parents are from Egypt and she along with her family lived there for a whole year, in addition to several extra months living in Nigeria. Her father died in 2014 and her mother works in Washington, DC for the Library of Congress. She also has a brother and a sister. 

She spent a year in Cairo, living with relatives, when she was working as a CBS news assistant in Egypt – which was her first professional job. Despite all that, she sees herself as an ordinary West Virginian.  

Hoda graduated from Fort Hunt High School in the year 1982. She was elected Homecoming Queen, on top of being selected as the most suitable student to speak during her graduating class' Baccalaureate service. After High school, she attended Virginia Tech from where she got Bachelor of Arts degree for Broadcast Journalism. As a college student at the said University, Hoda was a member of Delta Delta Delta Women's Sorority, Beta Nu Chapter and was also the pledge trainer for the sorority. 

After graduation, Hoda started as a morning anchor and general assignment reporter for WQAD-TV, the ABC affiliate in Moline, Illinois, and was an anchor for WXVT-TV, the CBS affiliate in Greenville, Mississippi from 1986 to 1989.Then, from 1992 to 1998 she was an anchor and reporter for WWL-TV’s 10 p.m. news broadcast (the CBS affiliate in New Orleans). Now, after several years of hard and successful work, she works as a correspondent to Dateline NBC and appears on the fourth hour of the Today Show, where she co-hosts with Kathie Lee Gifford. In several occasions, she serves as a fill-in co-anchor for or Savannah Guthrie and Matt Lauer on Today. 

She is great at her job and part of that has to do with Kathie Lee Gifford. The chemistry between the two is so obvious and so strong that it needs a special reference to say the least. Kotb has admitted that she loves working with Gifford because she thinks she "is insane" and is willing to do just about anything. In addition, the two would go once a week a Broadway show until they see each and every play there is. 

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The Today Show co-anchor has won a Daytime Emmy Awards for the year 2010 because she was a part of The Today Show Team. But that’s not all. Other awards include the 2002 Edward R. Murrow Award, the 2003 Gracie Award, the 2004 Headliner Award the prestigious Peabody in 2006 for her "Dateline NBC" report "The Education of Ms. Groves" and the 2008 Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University Award. 

Apart from television and the media, Hoda has written a bestselling book for New York Times called Hoda: How I survived War Zones, bad Hair, Cancer and Kathie Lee. She has also written a second book in Ten Years Later: Six People Who Faced Adversity and Transformed Their Lives. In that book, she chronicles six stories by identifying a life-changing event in each subject's life and then revisiting each of those six people a decade later. She also featured in the music video 'I’m Gonna Love You Through It' by Martina McBride. 

As for her personal life, Kotb was married to an ex tennis coach of University of New Orleans named Burzis Kanga. However, they divorced after two years of being named husband and wife. Shortly after, she suffered breast cancer and underwent a mastectomy with reconstructive surgery. This is what compelled her to begin advocating for breast cancer awareness. 'Today Show' cameras followed her during her battle with cancer, and when she was said to be cancer free, the story became broadcasted on TV. 

Hoda said that it was hard to come to terms with her post-cancer images because of all incisions on her chest and hips that looked more like a roadmap. However, she does not care anymore as long as she has a healthy body. Together with Kathie Lee Gifford, it is said that they had made a salary of 25 million dollars every year, beginning since the year 2014. She has an estimated net worth of over 12 million dollars according to various sources such as CelebrityNetWorth.com. 

By her nature, Hoda was always very open with her personal life. And so, in 2015, she said that she had a boyfriend called Joel Schiffman for two years. The latter is a New York financier. “He bought me a guitar for our one-year and we are just having a blast playing with it,” she told E!. As for her thoughts on marrying again, she replied: “I have already done it once, so, unlikely, but really, whoever knows in life? …Life is so crazy, who knows? I have a dog now, and who would ever think that?”. However, they did decide to take the first big step which is to move together. “It's a little weird to be in your 50s and we're like 'Hey, we're moving in!' It's like you're kids. It's so weird. I was afraid to tell my own mother that I was moving in with my boyfriend,” Hoda admitted. 

Hoda has made many appearances throughout the years as an anchor or correspondent, but her most recent appearances have been in 2016, in 'Brothers Take New Orleans' as a Celebrity judge. Also as Miss Sweetums, in 2017, on 'Mickey and the Roadster Racers'. 

On February 21, 2017, Kotb announced on the Today Show that she had adopted a baby girl named Haley Joy Kotb. 

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