Hoda Kotb Is ‘So Excited and Fired Up’ About Turning 60: ‘This Is an Important Time’

Today host Hoda Kotb has made it clear that she is not afraid of aging ahead of her 60th birthday. In fact, the broadcaster is “so excited and fired up” about hitting the milestone.

“I feel like I’m a better version, or more myself, each year I grow older,” she told TODAY.com in an interview published on Tuesday, July 9. “I think a lot of times we spend our time pretending — being someone we’re not. … After a while you’re like, ‘Oh, I’m me. God made me this way.'”

Hoda, 59, has accomplished so much in her career and personal life throughout the last decade.

“My 50s were my best, and I imagine, because my 50s were my best, that my 60s will be even better than that,” the Hope Is a Rainbow author said.

In her 50s, Hoda became a mom to daughters Haley and Hope, whom she adopted in 2017 and 2019, respectively. In January 2022, she announced her breakup from her ex-fiancé, Joel Schiffman, but her heart remains open in her quest for new love.

“Blessings come when they come. You don’t get the choice,” Hoda continued. “In my 50s, I got my children, I got the job I dreamt of, I found out who I was myself. Finally, I feel like I’m 100 percent me.”

The newscaster has gotten to work alongside pals Savannah Guthrie and Jenna Bush Hager on Today each morning, winning audiences over with her inviting personality and warm smile. In her next phase of life, Hoda hopes to “learn about other people’s lives.”

“I just want to be of service,” she reflected. “The first part of your life is about learning, the second part of your life’s about earning and the third part is about service and giving back.”

“I feel like this is an important time that’s coming for me,” Hoda continued.

Just ahead of her birthday month, Hoda moved into a new home with her daughters, further proving that her next chapter is just beginning.

“I literally was sitting at my desk this morning, where I sit every single morning. I light a candle, I have my journal, I do my stuff. And I thought to myself, ‘This is the last Monday I’ll be sitting at this desk,’ ‘cause we’re moving this week,” she said during a June 3 episode of Today.

While her old home was full of memories with her kids, Hoda is looking forward to starting anew in a fabulous new place.

“I remember them trying to crawl up the stairs and I remember, now, how they race up and down,” the Oklahoma native told Today viewers. “And I was thinking about the very first time we brought them home and carried them up those stairs in that car seat and placed them in a little thing and all the things that happened there. And I was looking through old videos of them, when they were so little, and it’s like you want to hold onto things and you want to let go.”