Watch 'Today' Co-Host Hoda Kotb Lose It After Meeting Hero Oprah Winfrey

Hoda Kotb fulfilled a lifelong dream on Friday: meeting Oprah Winfrey. The two shared the TV screen on NBC's Today Show this week in a moment that fans will not soon forget. Viewers shared in Kotb's excitement as Winfrey took the stage.

Winfrey is back in the press these days promoting her 2020 Visions Tour. Her visit to Today was perfectly timed, however, as Kotb and co-host Jenna Bush Hager are celebrating their first week on a new set, with a live studio audience.

That crowd cheered wildly as Winfrey walked out on the stage. She embraced Hager at the table, then paused for a meaningful smile at Kotb before they hugged as well. As she made her entrance she said: "It's happening! You manifested it!"

The three women took their seats, and Kotb was clearly fighting back tears of joy. She said she needed "a moment," adding: "do y'all feel like you need a moment?!" to the audience.

Winfrey and Hager then explained how Winfrey had come to be on the show. Hager had seen Winfrey at a previous stop on her Vision Tour last month and had asked her to be on the show. She admitted that one of the main reasons was to give her co-host a chance to meet a lifelong idol.

"Thank you. I can't tell you, Oprah, I feel like I've been in this business 100 years...you know when people say, like, 'You mean to much to me,' but they've never met you and I know maybe it does seems a little weird, but this is really one of those moments for me," Kotb said to Winfrey.

"I watched you over the years, I've watched you lift people up," Kotb continued. "There's only a couple people on the Earth who you want to emulate in our business. I watched you like, hold people's hearts in your hand, and I remember thinking, like, how does she do that? And you did it in such a way that was always so tender and real, and the fact that you're sitting here on this day is really kinda blowing my mind."

Winfrey's career and her larger-than-life screen presence has inspired many journalists and interviewers in recent years. She rose to national fame in the 1986 with her syndicated daytime talk show The Oprah Winfrey Show, which was on for 25 years before it ended in 2011.

Winfrey's show changed the face of daytime TV and had a profound effect on interviews and media criticism in general. It also highlighted self-improvement, self-help and empowerment methods that got a huge response from fans. It was all the more powerful because Winfrey is an African-American woman, bringing much-needed representation to the industry.

Many acclaimed stars have since cited that show as a profound influence in their early lives. That includes Kotb, who said that she felt a rush of childhood excitement when Oprah arrived on set.

"I mean, I'm 55 or 56, nobody knows," she joked. "Who cares. But it doesn't matter. It just shows you like, the kid in you in still in there when you walk in the door."