TV personality Hoda Kotb surprised fans in 2024 when she announced her exit from the Today show. One of her reasons for leaving was to focus on mothering her two daughters. In a recent interview with PEOPLE, Kotb revealed her youngest daughter, Hope, has type 1 diabetes. Alarms went off in February 2023 when Hope began experiencing a host of symptoms that led her to be hospitalized for two weeks.
“It’s kind of constant care for Hope. We’re monitoring her 24/7,” said Kotb. Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease that hinders the pancreas from making insulin. Consequently, carriers of the disease require frequent blood sugar monitoring and insulin injections.
“She was getting shots — four or five a day — every day for a year. Now she is getting them less frequently because we have some other means to get her what she needs, but there’s a lot to it,” explained the former TV host. “Some kids can have sweets, and she can’t. If she’s up in the night, we have to take care of her at night.”
Despite navigating these health challenges as a six-year-old, Hope is still thriving, the 60-year-old explained.
“She is a happy, healthy, rambunctious, amazing kid, and we have to watch her. Diabetes is a part of her but not all of her. I hope it shapes her but never defines her,” she said.
Now that the former Today show host is no longer locked into a contract that requires 3:15 am starts and hard deadlines, she can tend to her youngest’s health needs.
“I really wanted to and needed to be here to watch over her. So whenever she needs anything, and it can happen at night, multiple times, I’m up — I’m up up up,” she says. “But I would never, ever want Hope to one day grow up and say, ‘Oh, my mom left her job because [of me].’ It wasn’t that alone. But if you look at it cumulatively, it was a part of that decision.”
Kotb also has another daughter named Haley, who is eight years old and is being intentional about balancing her time between both girls.
“I think anybody who has one child who has immediate needs, sometimes you have to really work on it [to emotionally support the other]. And I’m actually trying to figure it out,” Kotb said, adding that sometimes they argue over who she loves the most.
She continued: “I just need to make sure that Haley feels seen and loved. I keep telling them my heart’s ability to expand is beyond measure.”
Hoda became a mom for the first time in 2017 when she adopted Haley alongside her ex-fiancé Joel Schiffman. In 2019, they expanded their family by adopting Hope. However, by 2022, the two called off their engagement.
Kotb is enjoying this phase of life where she can slow down and experience moments that may not have been possible with her previous busy work schedule.
“It’s really cool to just realize that there’s so much more to life,” she said. “I wasn’t able to bear witness to my kids’ daily lives because of what I was doing. I got to see Haley sing ‘What a Wonderful World’ at 9:15 a.m. — I would have missed that. I used to think life was the big things, but it really is all the stuff that happens in between.”