Hoda Kotb he may have moved on from his ex-fiancé Joel Schiffmanbut she fondly remembers one of the greatest moments of their relationship.
“Did you ever say ‘I love you’ first?” Jenna Bush Hager asked her cohost on the July 19, episode of Today with Hoda & Jenna. Kotb, 59, replied, “No. Not even times. Not – what – three times.
Kotb before marriage with Burzis Kanga from 2005 to 2008. She and Schiffman, 66, began dating in 2013 and got engaged six years later. Since calling it quits in 2022 after eight years together, Kotb has had several dates with new people.
“Joel said ‘I love you’ first,” she said. “I think you know what I feel, but I think it’s braver if you say it first. I think it shows that you can take risks and you stand there.
Looking back at the moment, Kotb continued: “After saying that, (he said), ‘Don’t let me blow here in the wind alone, now.’ … And I told him, I remember, I said, ‘No. I just want to feel this for a second before I say anything, before I respond.’ Because sometimes you react so fast, you can’t accept the item.
That memory is one Bush Hager, 42, finds sweet. “Wow, like a Hallmark movie,” he quipped before looking into the camera.
Kotb was quick to find out that his cohost shared his role in the upcoming Hallmark Christmas movie Holiday Touchdown: A Chief Love Story. “Did you just refer to it again?” he asked. Bush Hager responded by stating he was “just thinking about my trailer.”
Kotb first announced her and Schiffman’s split during a January 2022 episode Hoda & Jenna, said that he will start the new year “on a new path as a loving parent of children and fun friends.” (The two adopted daughters Haley, 7, and Hope, 5, in 2017 and 2019, respectively.)
Three months later, Kotb exclusively told Us Weekly coparenting with the ex is going smoothly. “He sees the children,” she said in April 2022. “He takes them to school, and he sees them on weekends. We have a very good situation. … We make sure that the children get a lot of him and a lot of me .
Kotb made a rare comment about Schiffman in the March episode of Hoda & Jenna, praising her and her ex for being “super decent” people. “Like, when I get up from the table, for example, Joel gets up every time, every time, even (a) regular dinner,” she shared.
He also remembers when he accidentally thought of his own shoes. “Joel and I have the same pair of sneakers, except they’re different sizes,” she said. “And when I put my sneakers on and it fits, and he’s like, ‘Where are my shoes?’ I got, ‘I don’t know,’ (and) he goes, ‘They’re here!’ … Sad! I went, ‘These are your sneakers?’ He goes, ‘Yes.’ I was like, ‘Oh my God, it’s so sad!’”
At Today anchor paid tribute to Schiffman on Father’s Day last month by sharing an Instagram pic of him and his girls cuddling up together on the couch. “Happy father’s day to the best dad ever!” he wrote on June 16.