Hoda Kotb is learning how to navigate daughter Hope’s Type 1 diabetes diagnosis.
“She’s definitely found her sea legs and we’re learning how to manage her diabetes,” Kotb, 60, exclusively told Us Weekly at the Wednesday, May 28, Joy 101 red carpet. “I feel like a lot of parents and families go through it. When the kids are little, it’s hard. They want what they want and it’s difficult.”
Kotb shared Hope’s diagnosis with People on Wednesday, noting that it’s been “constant care” for her youngest daughter. (Kotb and ex-fiancé Joel Schiffman adopted daughters Haley and Hope in 2017 and 2019, respectively. The pair announced their split in 2022, three years after they got engaged.)
“We’re monitoring her 24/7,” Kotb told the outlet, calling Hope a “trooper” for dealing with insulin injections and blood sugar monitoring. “She was getting shots — four or five a day — every day for a year. Now she is getting them less frequently because we have some other means to get her what she needs, but there’s a lot to it. Some kids can have sweets and she can’t. If she’s up in the night, we have to take care of her at night.”
The former Today anchor gushed that Hope is a “happy, healthy, rambunctious, amazing kid, and we have to watch her.” She added,“Diabetes is a part of her, but not all of her. I hope it shapes her but never defines her.”
Kotb shared that Hope’s diagnosis was a factor in her decision to bid farewell to the NBC morning show in January.
“I really wanted to and needed to be here to watch over her. So, whenever she needs anything, and it can happen at night, multiple times, I’m up — I’m up up up,” Kotb told the outlet. “But I would never, ever want Hope to one day grow up and say, ‘Oh, my mom left her job because [of me].’ It wasn’t that alone. But if you look at it cumulatively, it was a part of that decision.”
Months after her departure, Kotb returned to Today on Wednesday to promote her new wellness app and brand, Joy 101, which launched the same day.
“You hit a button and automatically curated for you is a special program,” she explained. “If you want prayer, it’s on the app. If you want meditation, it’s on the app. If you want help going to sleep, it’s all on there. And so, we’re also gonna have courses. We’re gonna do all kinds of cool things. We’re gonna have retreats. It’s the stuff that we love.”
