Hoda Kotb Details Hate Mail She Got That ‘Took Her Breath Away’

Hoda Kotb doesn’t appreciate any unsolicited advice when it comes to her role as a mother. While discussing Ariana Grande’s recent TikTok addressing comments about her body, the Today with Hoda & Jenna co-host revealed when she was taken aback by criticism of her adopting her first child when she was 52 in 2017. She’s also mother to another daughter, who is 3. Grande shared a three-minute video explaining her petite frame and shooting back at critics who make assumptions. Kotb could emphasize. 

“I’ll never forget this. I got a letter addressed to me in somebody’s handwriting to my house…and it was something along the lines of, ‘How dare you bring a child into this world at your age. Don’t you know what you’re doing to that child?’” she said she was asked. She added, “It took my breath away because that actually was my ouch. I was scared. Is this something that is smart for me to do? Am I helping, or am I ultimately going to be harming?”

Kotb couldn’t believe the hate coming her way. “I thought about that. And when I read it, I thought, ‘Someone took a pen and sat at a table and put it, wrote that down, and got a stamp and mailed it,’ went through all that trouble to say that to me,” she continued. “This took care and time and research. And so when I was feeling terrible, because I was, my dad passed when I was in college. And I remember thinking, we have our parents for a period of time. I know the foundation he left. I know it was worth every second of that time. But it’s real, it can hit you in a place that you’re the most vulnerable.”