Kotb and Joel Schiffman, a New York financier, have been an item since 2013. They first met when Kotb spoke at a conference for Wall Street financiers and traders. On November 25, 2019, she publicly announced their engagement.
In an interview on NBC’s Today, she elaborated, “Joel and I had a lot of long and profound conversations over the holidays, and we came to the conclusion that we’re better as friends and parents than as an engaged couple.”
In 2013, Kotb and Schiffman began an undercover relationship. The couple went public with their relationship in 2015. Later, in November of 2019, they planned to get engaged and quickly proceed to marriage and subsequent divorce. Kotb and Schiffman have two daughters together; Haley Joy, whom they adopted in February 2017, and Hope Catherine, whom they adopted in April 2019.
#GG2D check this out! Vicki and I were on Tee Vee! Kathy Lee and Hoda talk divorce and the show on TODAY. pic.twitter.com/l6BZ45LKoE
— School of Hard Nox (@martinoxon) February 1, 2016
This former couple may no longer be together, but they still put their daughters first. For the new year, she and her husband have “agreed that we are going to start this year as loving parents to our gorgeous, delightful children and as friends,” she stated in an interview with Today.
Hoda Kotb Early Life
Hoda Kotb is a journalist, TV host, and author originally from Egypt who is now based in the United States.
The entertainment-focused fourth hour of NBC’s The Today Show is co-anchored and co-hosted by the 57-year-old. Together with Jenna Bush Hager, she co-hosts the show every weekday morning. She used to be a correspondent for NBC’s Dateline.
Kotb attended Virginia Tech and earned a BA in broadcast journalism. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in March 2007, prompting a mastectomy and reconstructive surgery. She has since become a strong advocate for raising awareness about the disease.
NBC anchor Hoda Kotb parted ways with her longtime boyfriend Joel Schiffman in January 2022.
Past Relationship
The TV personality is now single, but this isn’t his first time on the dating scene. She was previously married to Burzis Kanga, a tennis pro who taught. In 2006, Kotb revealed to New Orleans Living that he had coached both the men’s and women’s tennis teams at UNO. The tennis pro at the Chateau Estates Country Club was also his job. Despite Kotb’s reluctance to talk about her ex-husband, the two have an interesting history together.
On February 14, Hoda Kotb and Burzis Kanga met at a benefit for the American Heart Association in New Orleans.
Kotb and Burzis, who had been seeing each other for quite some time, finally got engaged in May of 2005. They tied the knot in the Dominican Republic that December. For a while, the couple’s relationship flourished. Kotb gushed to New Orleans Living about his wife and her new status as a married couple. If I had known it would be this enjoyable, I would have done it a long time ago.
The pair, however, was not so lucky. A little over a year after they tied the knot, Kotb filed for divorce in February 2007. The divorce was finalized a year later, on February 14. Kotb admitted in 2016 that she used to hate Valentine’s Day. We met on Valentine’s Day and got divorced on the same day.
While Burzis Kanga eventually spoke about how they met, Hoda Kotb remained relatively silent on the subject of their divorce.