When longtime fixture Kathie Lee Gifford leaves the Today show in April, Jenna Bush Hager will take over co-hosting duties for the morning show’s popular fourth hour.
The news was jointly announced on-air when Gifford and her co-host Hoda Kotb sat down to open the 10 o’clock hour, joking that it was the “worst-kept secret in show business.” After an emotional Bush Hager, 37, took a seat between the two women, she admitted the news made her want to “weep.”
“It feels humbling and I can’t believe it,” said Bush Hager, who spent her teen years in the White House while her father George W. Bush served two terms as president. “My dad just wrote me three words which made me weep: ‘very proud dad.’ “
“Here at NBC and around the country, Jenna is loved,” said Kotb. “Kath is a legend and I still can’t believe … that I have had the great privilege of sitting next to you for 11 years,” Kotb said.
