Hoda Kotb’s send-off from TODAY got a boost from a beloved friend.
Kathie Lee Gifford made a surprise appearance on Hoda’s last episode of TODAY with Hoda & Jenna on Jan. 10.
She initially appeared in a video message from her home in Tennessee under the guise that she couldn’t make it. Then, Kathie Lee appeared onstage as Hoda’s jaw dropped to say a proper goodbye.
“I love you so much that I was thinking to myself, ‘I sure hope Kath comes,” Hoda said. “I’m so happy that you’re here.”
Kathie Lee Gifford surprised Hoda Kotb while appearing on the final episode of TODAY with Hoda & Jenna on Jan. 10. TODAY
“I have a message for you,” she said before singing “The Best Is Yet to Come.”
Kathie Lee and Hoda hosted TODAY with Kathie Lee & Hoda from 2008 until Kathie Lee left in 2019. Kathie Lee recalled how she and Hoda first bonded ahead of them teaming up for the fourth hour.
“I fell in love with Hoda at lunch,” she said about their first meeting and how they spent so much time at the restaurant that they were kicked out.
Kathie Lee said she only signed on to the show for a year.
“My problem is I fall in love, and I fell in love with Hoda,” she said. “And I said, ‘I don’t want to leave her.’ Every time I was with Hoda, the one thing I had in common with you and with Regis (Philbin) — two very, very different people — I look forward every single day to being with you both.”
“I’ve always said she’s sunshine in a bottle, isn’t she, everybody?” she added.
Hoda Kotb and Kathie Lee Gifford on TODAY March 31, 2008.Heidi Gutma/NBC / Getty Images
Kathie Lee also said Hoda proved her chops in other areas while they worked together.
“You proved to me that you’re a fearless person,” she said. “You are, because she didn’t do what she does now at the beginning. She was world-renowned journalist, but she didn’t trust her performing instincts, and that wasn’t going to work with me.”
The appearance included a toast.
“I think I want to send her off with what she knows from my heart means most to me is that I’m sending you off with a prayer,” Kathie Lee said before reciting a pair of prayers.
“May you walk into the most joyful, prosperous, purposeful time in your life,” she said.
Since Kathie Lee left, she and Hoda have remained close. Last month, the pair hung out at a New York Giants-New Orleans Saints game at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.
When Hoda announced in September she planned to leave TODAY, Kathie Lee couldn’t help but get emotional about the decision.
“Bittersweet news as my dear friend @hodakotb steps away from the Today Show,” Kathie Lee wrote in a post on X. “Her warmth, laughter, and incredible spirit have brightened our mornings and touched countless hearts. Here’s to new adventures!”
When Kathie Lee announced in 2018 that she would be leaving TODAY, Hoda gushed about what it was like to work with her.
“I always felt sitting next to you was like a master class in this broadcasting business, because nobody, nobody, nobody does it like you do it,” Hoda said. “Nobody ever has and nobody ever will. You are all by yourself. And I think everything is contagious. Your fearlessness is contagious.”
Before Kathie Lee left TODAY, the pair opened up about how much their relationship meant to them.
“(Kathie Lee) totally jumped into my life in a way that I had never experienced before,” Hoda said. “She stepped into it, and I was transfixed by her when we met. I don’t know if you’ve ever had that chemistry where you connect with someone like that. I had it, and it was a feeling I’d never had before — that kind of intensity.”
“I hope she knows how much I love her,” Kathie Lee said about Hoda. “When I love, I love with my entire being, as long as I’m here with a pulse. That’s how I love, and that hurts. That kind of love hurts, but I can’t imagine living one moment of my life without it.”
