Hoda Kotb Reveals Daughter Hope’s Health Diagnosis

Hoda Kotb is sharing 6-year-old daughter Hope’s Type 1 diabetes diagnosis with the world.

The former TODAY host, 60, shared the news as she returned to the NBC morning show on Tuesday for the first time since saying farewell to her anchor position in January.

While spending more time with daughters Hope and Haley, 8, was the main reason for Kotb’s decision to step back from TODAY, she revealed that Hope’s diagnosis “definitely weighed in.”

“As anyone with a child who has Type 1 [knows], especially a little kid, you’re constantly watching, you’re constantly monitoring, you’re constantly checking, which is what I did all the time when I was [at TODAY],” she told TODAY.com. “You’re distracted.”

“You just get a priority check in your life,” Kotb added during her conversation with former TODAY co-stars Savannah Guthrie and Craig Melvin. “I can be here and sweating what’s happening to Hope in the morning and in the night, or I can be there and feel relief that I can see.”

Hope first started experiencing health issues in 2023, and TODAY viewers will recall Kotb taking two weeks off in February 2023 to deal with a “family health matter.” The morning show personality later revealed Hope had been hospitalized with an unspecified illness and had even spent several days in the ICU.

Kotb now shared that Hope’s health crisis was due to her diabetes diagnosis, and that she “looked like she had the flu, and we literally had to race to the hospital.” When they arrived at the hospital, it was then that doctors were able to “figure it out.”

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Now, even though Hope’s condition is chronic, Kotb said she reminds herself that her youngest is still a normal kid. “I was totaling it up — five minutes at breakfast, five minutes at lunch, five minutes at dinner, sometimes overnight,” she said. “Add that up, that’s a half-hour. So for 23 and a half hours, she’s every other kid. So I try to remember that.”

“Don’t put your worry on your kid,” she advised fellow parents in a similar position. “Watch them, but don’t put your worry on them. Let them be kids and give them what they need when they need it.”