‘Today’ Fans Speculate About Ring on Hoda Kotb’s Finger After She Celebrates Holidays With Her Ex

Is Hoda Kotb engaged? Some Today show viewers seem to think so after the soon-departing co-anchor was spotted with a ring on her ring finger during the Thursday, Jan. 2 broadcast of the long-running NBC show.

The apparent engagement ring, which Kotb hasn’t commented on, was spotted following her recent reunion with her ex-fiancé Joel Schiffman over the holidays, leading some to believe they may have rekindled their romance. During the broadcast, Kotb could be seen wearing and fiddling with a band on her fourth finger on her left hand, the placement typically reserved for engagement rings. The piece of jewelry didn’t go unnoticed by eagle-eyed viewers, many of whom took to social media to comment.

“Did anyone else notice the ring on Hoda’s left hand this morning?” another person asked in the comments section of one of Kotb’s most recent Instagram posts. “I was waiting for an announcement. At one point she was fiddling with it, sliding it up and down. I was really hoping her and Joel were back together.”

The commenter wasn’t the only person to notice the ring, with somebody else writing, “Yes, I noticed that too and I was waiting for her to make an announcement also.” A third person noted that Kotb “seemed exceptionally giddy this morning and I thought maybe it was because she’s looking forward to her time off after next week. But then I noticed the ring and I wondered if something else was going on.” Somebody else wrote that Kotb “seemed to show the ring at one point and then all of a sudden realize that maybe she shouldn’t yet and it seemed as though she was hiding her hand from that point on” and theorized, “maybe she will make an announcement soon.”

Kotb and Schiffman began dating in 2013 and went public with their relationship in 2015. After adopting daughters Haley and Hope in February 2017 and April 2019, respectively, Schiffman, a financier, proposed in November 2019. However, a little more than two years later, the former couple announced in January 2022 that they had called off their engagement and split.

“Joel and I have had a lot of prayerful and meaningful conversations over the holidays and we decided that we are better as friends and parents than we are as an engaged couple, so we decided we are going to start this new year on our new path as loving parents to our adorably delightful children and as friends,” Kotb said at the time. “It’s not like something happened. They say sometimes relationships are meant to be there for a reason, a season or a lifetime, this was for a season.”

Despite their split, Kotb and Schiffman remained important aspects of one another’s lives in the years that followed. The pair even recently reunited to celebrate Christmas together, Kotb sharing photos of her family’s celebrations to Instagram.