Hoda Kotb is offering a candid look into the end of her relationship with her ex-fiancé Joel Schiffman.
The former “Today” show anchor reveals in her new book, “Jump and Find Joy,” that she knew the pair’s engagement was over after she spent a week at the Hoffman Institute, which is known for helping individuals and couples with personal breakthroughs.
Kotb writes that she felt like “everything had shifted” and that the couple’s “‘us’ felt different.”
During a session, Kotb wrote she “looked around at all the people who’d shared their raw truth” and she “felt so moved by their honesty.”
“‘I am a total phony in my relationships,’ I said. ‘I’m a pretender,’” Kotb admitted.
She wrote that the revelation was “one of the best ten-second decisions” of her life.
When asked by Today.com what she meant by identifying as a “pretender,” the author elaborated.
“I think sometimes you know that a relationship is — I would say good — but you think to yourself it’s not deepening,” she shared.
“I loved Joel then, and I love Joel now. I just had to remind myself that it was a different kind of love,” Kotb added. “You can still love and admire someone and not want to be in a relationship, a long-term relationship that way, personal relationship.”
Kotb and Schiffman were first linked in 2013 and got engaged in November 2019. They share two adopted daughters: Haley and Hope.
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The “Today” show star would later reveal on the air in 2022 that the two had made the difficult decision to end their engagement, as they had “decided that we’re better as friends and parents than we are as an engaged couple.”
“It’s not like something happened,” Kotb shared at the time. “They say sometimes relationships are meant to be there for a reason, for a season, or for a lifetime. And I feel like ours was meant to be there for a season.”
