'Today Show': Look Back at Hoda Kotb's Breakup

By Daniel S. Levine

Today Show favorite Hoda Kotb reportedly ended her engagement to Joel Schiffman back in 2022 because she thought their marriage would not work out, sources told Page Six at the time. Kotb and Schiffman ended up splitting over the holidays in 2021, but Kotb did not talk about their decision on-air until Jan. 31. The two were together for eight years and are parents to daughters Haley, 4, and Hope, 2.

The day after Kotb talked about the break-up on Today with Hoda & Jenna, sources told Page Six the two split around Christmas. She only decided to speak out because fans started asking her where her engagement ring was after they noticed she was not wearing it in Instagram photos. Sources close to the journalist said she believed their marriage would not work.

On Jan. 31, Kotb, 57, told Today viewers that she and Schiffman, 63, decided they were better off as friends following "a lot of prayerful and meaningful conversations" in December. There was no single event that inspired the split, she explained. "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," Kotb said.

Kotb only had good things to say about Schiffman, a financier. "He's a great guy. He's a very kind and loving person, and I feel privileged to have spent eight years with him," she said. "We are both good and we are both kind of going on our way and our path. We'll be good parents to those two lovely kids."

Although Kotb and Schiffman were together for eight years, the two didn't get engaged until 2019. They had plans to get married in November 2020, but they delayed exchanging vows because of the COVID-19 pandemic. In July 2021, Kotb told her Today co-host Jenna Bush Hager the two were just waiting to make sure everyone could travel. "We want to do it in a place that we love deep in our soul that means a lot to us, and we want our closest to come," Kotb said at the time. "But Joel kept saying, 'Why are we waiting? Let's just go already.'"

Since the split, Kotb has mostly focused on sharing Winter Olympics posts on her Instagram page as NBC's coverage of the events continue. However, on Feb. 4, she did share an adorable picture of Haley Joy holding up a makeshift torch. "Who is ready for the [Olympics]? We are!!" she wrote. 

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