NEED TO KNOW
Jenna Bush Hager is in no rush to find Hoda Kotb’s replacement on the Today show.
Bush Hager, 43, shared an update on the hunt to find someone to fill the shoes Kotb, 60, left empty when she exited the NBC morning show in January, when speaking exclusively to PEOPLE at the Read With Jenna Book Festival in Nashville this past weekend.
“We’re still searching,” Bush Hager said. “We definitely want somebody permanent at some point just because that’s our show, and I think the Today show is such a family.”
“So to have somebody sit in that seat means a lot to all of us. So it will happen,” she continued. “I think we’ve all just been kind of living day by day and we don’t have any developments yet, but we will.”
Nathan Congleton/NBC via Getty
Bush Hager and Kotb co-hosted the fourth hour of the Today show, titled Today with Hoda & Jenna, together for more than five years, starting in April 2019 until Kotb left in January 2025.
Following Kotb’s departure, the show was then retooled as Today with Jenna & Friends, with guest co-hosts joining Bush Hager.
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The former colleagues had a tear-filled on-camera reunion last week when Kotb guest co-hosted Today with Jenna & Friends alongside Bush Hager on the May 28 episode.
“It was so nice,” Bush Hager told PEOPLE of the reunion, likening her relationship with Kotb to that of “your best friend from college” or “your childhood best friend.”
“Even if time goes by, there’s a connection that is undeniable, and I felt that way being with her. I just felt like my nervous system kind of relaxed and it was so nice to be with her,” she continued. “There could have been no better reunion. It felt really great.”
Despite missing Kotb at work, Bush Hager said she’s happy her friend is “in such an exciting place of her next chapter and she’s so excited about it.”
Kotb exited Today earlier this year after 17 years, revealing in the newest issue of PEOPLE that one of her biggest reasons for leaving was to focus on her daughters, 8-year-old Haley and 6-year-old Hope — specifically due to her youngest’s type 1 diabetes.
Kotb has also launched a wellness app, Joy 101, since leaving Today.
