From staying up “all night” to monitor daughter Hope’s diabetes to the “tall, handsome male” in her future, Hoda Kotb doesn’t hold anything back at her Joy 101 retreat: “Everyone’s got something.”
‘Today’ show’s Hoda Kotb’s daughter, Hope, has become ‘more resilient’
‘Today’ show co-host Hoda Kotb chats with USA TODAY’s Erin Jensen about her career and daughters. She has a new children’s book, “Hope is a Rainbow.”
AMELIA ISLAND, Fla. — Shortly after sunrise at a picturesque escape, less than 40 miles from Jacksonville, in which the coming of the morning has illuminated the Atlantic Ocean’s horizon in vibrant shades of tangerine and coral, I sit with Hoda Kotb before the metaphorical sun sets on her Joy 101 Fall Retreat.
The former “Today” anchor, who launched the wellness company offering an app and events in May 2025, looks comfortable in a grey pullover and black leggings. After our talk, she’ll happily pose for photos with some of the 350 attendees of the sold-out weekend hosted at The Ritz-Carlton Sept. 25-27. Participants could attend conversations with Kotb and notable guests, and enjoy activities like working out with her trainer Brian Harrington or try to find peace in a breathwork workshop or sound bath.
A ballroom filled with friends for decades, mothers and daughters, solo travelers, and those reconnecting after meeting at March’s Spring Retreat in Scottsdale, heard model Molly Sims speak about incessant rejection in the industry: “I was constantly told I was too fat, too skinny, too muscular.” Peloton instructor Ally Love recalled “many nights that I cried” over low class attendance. “Top instructors at the time were getting 20,000 people,” she said. “I was getting a whopping 428.” Singer Colbie Caillat opened up about her stage fright as an introvert, while explaining the origins of her 2014 song “Try.”
“I just didn’t expect all of the vulnerability,” Kotb tells USA TODAY, the only news outlet to attend the retreat. “I thought it was going to be, ‘Let’s go!’ And then to watch all of these superstars put their heart on the table and go, ‘There it is. That’s mine right there. You can have it.’”
“I think it’s just a reminder, we’re all a work in progress; I am too,” Kotb, 62, continues. “We’re connected in the broken places.”
Life for Kotb, like the rest of us, has been a marriage of ebbs and flows. Surviving a 2007 breast cancer diagnosis emboldened Kotb to put her hat in the ring for the fourth hour of “Today.” Her dream of becoming a mother came true in 2017 when she and then-boyfriend Joel Schiffman adopted daughter Haley Joy, joined by sister Hope Catherine in 2019. Later that year Schiffman proposed, though the two never made it down the aisle. The journalist revealed in early 2022 that she and Schiffman ended their engagement. And in May of 2025, months after leaving her anchor chair at “Today” and “Today with Hoda & Jenna” to pursue Joy 101, Kotb shared Hope’s Type 1 diabetes diagnosis.
“Everyone’s got something,” Kotb says. “I worry about my youngest daughter [Hope, 7] who has diabetes. I am concerned. I go to sleep, I watch my phone all night to see what her numbers are doing. I wake up and see. That’s just constant. That is how it is.”
Despite the curveballs that life has thrown her way, Kotb manages to maintain an optimistic attitude − in part due to the coping mechanisms she’s learned.
“I can go in there and do a breathwork [session] and release everything I’m carrying. And now I go back to Hope and Haley [9 years old], tank full, let’s go,” she says of her Joy 101 retreat. “But we’re all caring for someone who needs a lot of stuff, or we’re going through life stuff, and I just feel like get on your knees and then go climb the mountain!”
Kotb’s warmth and approachability were appreciated at her retreat. Her desires to deepen bonds with those closest to her and find lasting love one day also speak to her relatability. During a manifestation exercise over the weekend, mind coach Manjit Devgun asked her to visualize three desires playing out onscreen like a movie.
“One of them was our happy home. I could see my kids and I, just deepening what we have and a stability and a peace and all those things,” Kotb explains. “The second one was there was this tall, handsome male figure, who literally had his arm draped around me. And I was so at peace… Couldn’t see his face or anything, but it was like a warm hand on your heart kind of beautiful image.”
Kotb has previously spoken about a spark with a man she met on an airplane, which even drew Sandra Bullock’s curiosity in a recent sit-down interview for “Practical Magic 2.” Though they’ve exchanged “a few texts here and there” − “‘I can’t see you. Maybe next time, blah, blah, blah,'” she divulges of their conversations − Kotb is hopeful that the right person will end up in her path.
“There’s something that’s very playful and fun. Is it something? I don’t know, and will he be the person in the image?” she says. “I don’t know, but it’s fun right now, just as everything is.”
As for her final visualization, Kotb says, “The third image that I saw was the company, but more of being in places live. It was like we were here and there, and it wasn’t like a clear image, but it was just like joy was everywhere.”
It appears she may be onto something. Joy Fest, another live event hosted by Kotb, is slated for spring in New Orleans. Kotb and her close confidant Maria Shriver will also embark on The Friendship Tour, kicking off Nov. 2 in Red Bank, New Jersey.
The idea came about after Shriver expressed a desire to bring people together. Kotb recalls her friend telling her, “‘Let’s start it. Let’s put inspiration out in the world. Let’s rekindle the conversations, friends bringing friends, people coming alone. It doesn’t matter.’”
The duo will discuss their friendship and ask other sets of friends to join them on the tour.
“There’s no motivation,” Kotb says, “other than to put love out.”