Hoda Kotb She speaks candidly about her fears when it comes to her daughter Hope’s battle with Type 1 diabetes.
“Everybody has something,” the 62-year-old former Today presenter said USA Today “I worry about my youngest daughter, who has diabetes. I worry. I go to sleep, I look at my phone all night to see what the phone numbers are doing. I wake up and I see it. It’s constant. It’s just the way it is,” she said in an interview published on Tuesday, September 29.
Kotb shared that she learned ways to cope through wellness brand Joy 101 and the company’s annual retreats. (The last fall retreat, held at The Ritz-Carlton on Florida’s Amelia Island, ran from Friday, September 25 through Sunday, September 27.)
“I can go there and do some breathing work [session] and release everything I carry. And now I’m going back to Hope and [daughter] “Haley, the tank’s full, let’s go,” she explained. “But we’re all taking care of someone who needs a lot or going through life stuff and we just feel like getting down on our knees and climbing the mountain!”
Kotb shares 7-year-old Hope and 9-year-old Haley with his ex-fiancée Joel Schiffman. The couple were together for eight years before announcing their separation in January 2022.
Kotb announced Hope’s Type 1 diabetes diagnosis in May 2025, calling her little girl a “trooper” for having to deal with insulin injections and blood sugar monitoring.
“It’s constant care for Hope. We monitor her 24/7,” he told People at the time. “He was getting four or five shots a day, every day for a year. Now he gets shots less often because we have other ways to get him what he needs, but there’s so much to do. Some kids can eat candy, but he can’t. If he wakes up at night, we have to take care of him at night.”
Despite her health issues, Kotb said Hope is “a happy, healthy, happy-go-lucky, wonderful kid and we should watch her.”
“Diabetes is a part of him but not all of him. I hope it shapes him but never defines him.”
Courtesy of Hoda Kotb/Instagram Hoda Kotb’s youngest daughter, Hope, is making great progress after a health scare last year. “We’re in a place where Hope is evolving. It’s evolving, we’re watching it, and I think we’ll get better at it as time goes on, but we’re already seeing big differences,” Kotb said. […]
Hope’s diagnosis played a role in Kotb’s decision to leave the team Today show in January 2025, 17 years later.
“I really wanted and needed to be here to keep an eye on him. So whenever he needs something, and it can happen multiple times a night, I’m up — I’m up,” Kotb explained. “But I never want Hope to grow up one day and say, ‘Oh, my mom quit her job because [of me].’ That wasn’t the only thing. “But when you look at it collectively, it’s part of that decision.”
Kotb also shared an update on Hope’s health struggle. We In May 2025.
“He’s definitely found his sea legs and we’re learning how to manage diabetes,” she said. “I think a lot of parents and families go through this. It’s hard when kids are little. They want what they want, and it’s hard.”