Hoda Kotb is pulling the plug on finding love, says an insiders, now that the former Today star has finally given up on a reunion with ex-fiancé Joel Schiffman.
The 61-year-old single mom of daughters Haley, 8, and Hope, 6, has been chattering about jumping onto the dating-go-round again for years, and even asked former Today cohorts Savannah Guthrie and Jenna Bush Hager to set her up, according to Entertainment Tonight.
Hoda Kotb
But that went nowhere and pals blame Hoda, insisting she’s still hung up on Schiffman, 67, whom she split from in 2022 following a three-year engagement.
Dishes an insider: “She was thinking he was coming back and even expecting it for so long, but now she’s saying she’s finally given up and sees it’s for the best.”
“She has started to turn her attention to other people and had some dates, but that’s not panning out well.”
“All roads lead back to Joel because what they had was special.”
But an insider blames the former TV star for the breakup, saying that Hoda thought their romance “needed to be something else.”
“She dragged the relationship down and that’s a hard fact to face. Now, she’s filling her calendar and starting to get busy again and putting an effort into meeting somebody, but she’s philosophical about it, too.”
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Globe previously reported how financial honcho Schiffman — who is still friendly with Hoda while coparenting their adopted girls — was keen on a hookup arrangement with Hoda, but she balked at that and tried to hold out for something more meaningful.
In her recent memoir, Jump and Find Joy: Embracing Change in Every Season of Life, she cried over the loss of their love affair, and recalled a soul-searching experience at a life-building retreat that left her reexamining her priorities.
“I knew I could say that I wanted to better myself or something vague like that,” Kotb writes. “But when I looked around at all the people who’d shared their raw truth, I felt so moved by their honesty.
“They deserved the same from me. So, I said it. I told the truth about why I had come. ‘I am a total phony in my relationships,’ I said. ‘I’m a pretender.’ ”