Hoda Kotb and her longtime boyfriend/fiancé Joel Schiffman have broken up.
The couple has been together since 2013 and share two daughters Hope, 2 and Haley, 4 together. They are breaking up after getting engaged in November 2019.
Kotb announced on Monday, "Joel and I have had a lot of prayerful and meaningful conversations over the holidays and we decided that we're better as friends and parents than we are as an engaged couple, so we decided we are going to start this new year ... on our new path as loving parents to our adorable, delightful children, and as friends."
"It's not like something happened. They say sometimes relationships are meant to be there for a reason, or a season or for a lifetime. And I feel like ours was meant to be there for a season," she said to co-host Jenna Bush Hager.
"A lot of women know what this feels like ... to be changing course in life, and I feel really brave in this moment, which is a strange feeling to feel," she said. "But sometimes in your life, you just have to say the truth," Kotb continues.
"You can carry it and you can pretend. ... You ask yourself, 'Am I just being optimistic?' " Kotb added. "And sometimes you realize optimism is like trying to put a circle in a square — sometimes it just doesn't work, and it's okay. To be able to acknowledge it …. I feel better that I said it."