Hoda Kotb has blown viewers away with her ageless appearance after celebrating 25 years at NBC this week with a throwback to her first day on the job.
The Today host, 58, was unaware of the anniversary when her co-stars surprised her with a tribute on Thursday’s show, including footage of her making her NBC News debut in 1998.
‘This is a great day in NBC News history because 25 years ago today, Hoda Kotb had her first day at NBC,’ Savannah Guthrie announced in the Today plaza, catching her stunned co-anchor off guard.
‘Is that for real?’ Kotb asked, looking around at the crowd.
Today fans are insisting Hoda Kotb, 58, (right) hasn’t aged since she made her NBC in April 1998 (left)
Kotb was unaware it was her 25-year anniversary when her co-stars surprised her with a tribute on the Thursday’s show
‘This is a great day in NBC News history because 25 years ago today, Hoda Kotb had her first day at NBC,’ Savannah Guthrie announced in the Today plaza
The journalist, who was previously a news anchor in New Orleans, got her start at the network as a correspondent for Dateline NBC and NBC News in April 1998.
Kotb gave Guthrie a big hug before reflecting on the milestone, telling her co-stars that ’25 feels good.’
And, according to her fans, it looks good too.
Footage of the heartwarming moment was shared on both the Today and Today with Hoda & Jenna Instagram pages, where commenters insisted she hasn’t changed a bit.
‘You look the same,’ one person wrote, while another added, ‘She hasn’t aged!’
‘She looks as young as she did 25 years ago as she does today. What’s in that cup she drinks out of on the show?’ someone else asked. ‘Need to get me some.’
Kotb reflected on her time at NBC on the show’s fourth hour, telling her co-host Jenna Bush Hager that ‘it’s been such a fun 25 years.’
‘In any relationship you have, whether you’re in a relationship with a friend, or a boyfriend, or even in a job,’ she said, ‘you wonder how does it not feel like all those years, and I think it’s because it kept changing.’
Kotb told her co-stars that ’25 feels good’ – and, according to her fans, it looks good too
Viewers gushed on Instagram that Kotb ‘looks the same’ as she did in 1998 and ‘hasn’t aged’ in 25 years
Kotb explained that she ‘worked for Dateline for many years and loved it,’ but she ‘felt unworthy of that job’ when she first got hired.
‘I remembered them saying, ‘Change your hair, change your clothes, change this, change that.” Nothing was right about me. I sort of felt like I was putting a circle in a square, trying to fit,’ she recalled.
And while it’s hard to imagine a time when Kotb wasn’t a Today host, she admitted that she was once considered too ‘boring’ to be on the show.
‘If you’ve ever been one of those people who’s been put in a box, and I was because I only covered hard news…when the lighter fare came up, like this show, the bosses were very, early on, sort of against me getting it,’ she said. ‘They were just like, “Not her. She’s boring. Don’t pick her.”‘
Kotb noted that the only person who fought for her was TV producer Amy Rosenblum, who gave her career-changing advice.
Kotb reflected on her time at NBC on the show’s fourth hour, telling her co-host Jenna Bush Hager that she was once considered too ‘boring’ to be a Today host
‘The bosses were very, early on, sort of against me getting it,’ she recalled. ‘They were just like, “Not her. She’s boring. Don’t pick her”‘
She explained that when Rosenblum offered to help her, she told her, ‘I want you to be like the person you are in my office, not the boring one you are on TV. Be the one I know.’
Kotb remembered hearing that and wondering if that was true, eventually realizing that she was focusing on the wrong things and not letting her personality shine through.
‘I was so busy trying to be right, trying not to mess up, trying to be perfect,’ she said. ‘Whenever I made it through a segment without messing up, I was like, “Yes!”
‘And everyone else was like, “That was a big bore.” But I didn’t realize imperfections are actually what make something work better.”‘
Kotb has also realized that the key to staying with something for so many years is to ‘keep evolving’ and ‘try something new.’
‘So I went from Dateline to this hour, to the earlier hours, and as you’re doing it, you work new muscles,’ she said of her own evolution at NBC.
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