Former Today host Hoda Kotb is sharing a life update years after she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
“I mean, there are people who are going to get breast cancer. I didn’t think I was one. I mean, I ate apples and ran in Central Park. I was like me? When they called me, they were like, ‘Oh, it’s you.’ I go, ‘It can’t be me. Why would it be me?’ I’ve never done any of the things that would lead to this diagnosis, but yet it came,” Kotb, 60, told People magazine on Thursday, February 27.
The broadcast journalist received a call from her doctor’s office when she was 42 years old. Her course of treatment involved a mastectomy and reconstructive surgery. Kotb decided not to have chemotherapy as the cancer didn’t spread to her lymph nodes. Following her surgery, she took tamoxifen, a medication that blocks the effects of estrogen, for five years.
“When it comes to breast cancer, it’s sort of like, get it early, get it out, and try not to be defined by it. It can shape you, but if it defines you, then you will spend your life feeling a certain way. So it’s like understanding this is part of me, but not all of me. It’s going to change me and I’ll be different now,” Kotb told People, adding, “But what you’ll find is you’re braver, you’re more resilient.”
On an August 2024 episode of her Making Space podcast, Kotb openly discussed her past cancer diagnosis and how it changed her life. She candidly recalled being told by her doctor that she wouldn’t be able to conceive children.
“I was like, ‘Wait, what?’ So this thing not only put limits on my life, but killed a dream,” she said.
A few years down the road, Kotb was able to explore other options to become a mother. In 2017, she adopted her daughter Haley, now 9. Two years later, Hope, now 5, joined the family by way of adoption.
Kotb has remained cancer free ever since her treatment. She left Today in January 2025.
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