Hoda Kotb knows what she wants in a future partner — and chivalry undoubtedly comes first.
“I grew up my whole life not ever seeing my mother open a door. Not a car door, not a front door, no door,” Kotb, 61, revealed on the Thursday, July 9, episode of her “Joy Rides” YouTube miniseries. “My dad went around, opened the door every single time, and so I thought it was normal. I thought that’s what people did.”
Following her father’s lead, Kotb has preferred her own suitors act the same way.
“If I go out on a date and someone, you know, orders first or sits down and says to the waitress, ‘I’ll have’ before me or hops in his door and goes, ‘Oh,’ and then looks to … unlock,” she quipped of her pet peeves. “I have to say that’s, like, my No. 1, and I think that’s everything to me.”
The former Today host added, “Also, I don’t care about somebody’s money. All I care about is emotional, like, connection, a real connect.”
Kotb shared that she experienced a real-life moment of connection during a recent flight.
“I was actually on a flight the other day and sat next to somebody and, literally, for the whole flight, we had this weird connection [and] connect moment,” she recalled. “I don’t know if it was what it was exactly, but I walked out of there floating. I don’t know what it was, but it was something that I felt I was like, ‘I need more of whatever this is in my life.’”
In regard to dating, Kotb specifically hopes to connect with a partner who can “enjoy” life.
Kotb was previously married to Burzis Kanga from 2005 to 2008. She later dated financier Joel Schiffman for eight years before they called off their engagement in 2022. Since their split, Kotb and Schiffman, 68, have continued to coparent their two daughters, Haley, 9, and Hope, 7.
“He sees the kids. He takes them to school some, and he sees them on weekends,” Kotb exclusively told Us Weekly in April 2022. “We’ve got a really nice, easy situation. We make sure that the kids get plenty of him and plenty of me.”
At the time, Kotb wasn’t ready to dive back into the dating scene.
“I think love is a funny thing. Like, your heart has a large capacity, and who knows what fills it up,” she said. “I think whatever it is, you’ve got to be open and ready.”
In the years since the breakup, Kotb has wondered how the separation affected her kids.
“I’m raising my kids essentially by myself. I often think about like, ‘How will they understand what love looks like?’” she said on the “Making Space” podcast in May 2025. “Families are big, and they come in different shapes and sizes.”
