Hoda Kotb is a much-loved TV star who is always cheering on her colleagues and famous guests on Today.
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But on Monday night, it was her time to shine as she was became a Matrix Award winner. The mom-of-two was honored at the annual Matrix Awards, an event that celebrates outstanding women in communications.
Many of Hoda’s co-stars, past and present, shone a light on why the star is such a worthy winner – and it got quite emotional.
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The journalist’s former co-star Kathie Lee Gifford said: “Hoda’s story is so inspirational, because she just was up against all odds to even get her first job in television.”
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Savannah Guthrie touched on the 57-year-old’s heartbreaking cancer battle and her journey to parenthood, proving how much of a role model she is to so many women.
“She had been through breast cancer. She had gone through a divorce. And I think she thought to herself, motherhood is not something that’s going to happen for me.
Hoda Kotb was inundated with messages from her co-stars following her award
“And at some point she just woke up, and she said, ‘Well, why not me?. She’s somebody who’se ever-evolving and never satisfied to stop learning. And to me, that is a role model for all women in communications.”
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Al Roker added: “Hoda does serious news interviews along with the best of them,” while Jenna Bush Hager said of her Fourth Hour co-star: “She has worked so hard to get where she is.”
Accepting the award, Hoda said: “All of my professional dreams came true. I had a lifetime at Dateline. I had a lifetime with Kathie Lee and now Jenna, and now I have a new lifetime with Savannah on the early hours. Every professional dream came true for me.”
Hoda has had an incredible career in journalism
The podcaster then shared a touching story involving Savannah, who helped motivate her in her personal life when it came to her dream of starting a family.
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“If you want something bad enough, say it out loud. A friend once said, ‘Even if you whisper in the bathroom mirror to yourself.” “One thing I always wanted was kids, and I was afraid to speak it,” she said in her acceptance speech.
“And one day I just looked at Joel [Schiffman] the guy I had been dating a year, and blurted something out I thought I wasn’t going to be able to say.”
The journalist with Fourth Hour co-star Jenna Bush Hager
Hoda had asked Joel if he would consider the possibility of adopting a child with her, and he immediately said yes, with the pair now doting parents to daughters Haley and Hope.
“So say your dreams out loud, if you speak them, sometimes they do come true,” she said.
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