Jamie Lee Curtis “can’t imagine” TODAY without Hoda Kotb, so she made sure to tell her on the show while reading a heartwarming note that left Hoda wiping away tears.
Curtis had mailed a letter to Hoda’s home Sept. 28 after learning she was leaving TODAY in January, but Hoda said it never arrived. Instead, Hoda had the note with her during the Oscar winner’s appearance on the show Dec. 12.
“Can you read it, because I’m not going to read it,” an emotional Hoda asked Curtis.
Hoda wiped away tears as Curtis read the short note.
“It says, ‘Hoda, the long and winding road. Where you go, my hand in yours. Bravo,'” Curtis said. “It was when you had announced that you were leaving.”
Curtis began the interview by sharing her surprise that Hoda decided to leave TODAY while remaining in the NBC family.
“Here’s how we’re going to begin: Say it ain’t so, Hoda,” Curtis said. “I can’t deal with it. I just can’t deal with it. I just cannot believe this is the last time I’m going to be here with you.”
Curtis said she was dressed in a purple jacket because “purple is a wound, so I have a wound today with you.”
The frequent TODAY guest, who stars in the new Amazon Prime Video series “The Sticky” with Emmy winner Margo Martindale and the upcoming movie “The Last Showgirl” with Pamela Anderson, was effusive in her praise of Hoda.
“You are an absolute treasure, and we are all going to miss you here,” Curtis said. “I can’t imagine this place without you.”
Hoda showed her appreciation for Curtis always being in her corner.
“By the way, thank you for cheering on all the women, myself included, and Pamela and Margo and everybody,” Hoda said.
Curtis also thanked Hoda at the end of the interview for all her kind words.
“I want to say thank you,” Curtis told her. “You have truly changed this place, this house, this group of people that love you, and you are going off for all the right reasons.
“And you’re going to take all of us with you, and whatever you do, know that you’ll have this family with you. But you are a beautiful human being, and this show is better for you being here.”
It was the latest emotional moment between the two on TODAY. In January, Curtis brought Hoda and Jenna Bush Hager to tears on the fourth hour of TODAY with sincere comments about why people love coming on the show.
“I think what you guys do and what you offer here in this sort of very intimate, but, yet very public world, is — this is why I think people love you guys and love tuning in to this because this is real,” she said. “This isn’t fake.”
In March 2023, Curtis sent teddy bears to Hoda’s daughters, Haley and Hope, after Hope had fallen ill. It came at a time when Curtis had just won her first Oscar for her performance in “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”
“And I thought to myself, in the middle of her shining moment in her life, she is sending something to me and my kids,” Hoda told Curtis on TODAY at the time. “And I can’t tell you how touched and how beautiful I thought that was. And I just wanted to say thank you.”
