More than five months since Hoda Kotb’s official departure from the TODAY show, the beloved former co-anchor popped in to the show Wednesday morning for the first time since January. While sitting down with TODAY co-anchors Savannah Guthrie and Craig Melvin, Kotb revealed her newest venture — and the personal factor that played a big part in her decision to leave the beloved morning series.
What is Joy 101, Hoda Kotb’s app?
Kotb announced the launch of Joy 101, a wellness community and platform “to introduce a more joyful and balanced life,” per a press release. It’ll offer online courses, practices, and events, plus in-person retreats and other surprises along the way — all with Kotb at the helm, of course. For now, it’ll be an app where users will get a daily personalized “joy plan” — “featuring research-backed tools designed by leading experts and brought together by Hoda to fit your needs, your mood, and your real life,” the website boasts.
“You know when you find something so special, so life-changing that you just have to share it? That’s me, and that’s Joy 101,” Kotb said in a statement. “It’s a place to pass on the light, the lessons and the healing I’ve been lucky enough to receive from the very best in wellness. Think of it as an introduction into a more joyful, balanced, beautiful life.”
The app will feature resources like guided meditations, breath work, gratitude practices, sleep tips, and more.
Joy 101 is available for preorder now in the app store, and it will officially launch in two weeks. Membership starts at $16.99 per month or $99 for the year.
Hoda Kotb reveals daughter Hope’s diagnosis
The launch of her new app wasn’t the only big revelation Kotb made — she also dug into why she decided to depart TODAY after 17 years.
You might recall that back in September 2024, Kotb made the tearful announcement that she’d be stepping down from the TODAY show. A few months later, she shared that she wanted to spend more time with her daughters, Hope and Haley. “I had my kiddos late in life, and I was thinking that they deserve a bigger piece of my of my time pie that I have,” she said back in January. “I feel like we only have a finite amount of time.”
During her appearance on Wednesday, she gave fans some more information into what was going on at home. She shared that her daughter Hope was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, and that helping Hope navigate the chronic illness “definitely weighed in” to her decision to depart the morning show.
“As anyone with a child who has Type 1 [knows], especially a little kid, you’re constantly watching, you’re constantly monitoring, you’re constantly checking, which is what I did all the time when I was [at TODAY]. You’re distracted.” Kotb told Guthrie and Melvin that being home with her daughters more was “a priority check” for her. “I can be here [in the studio] and sweating what’s happening to Hope in the morning and in the night, or I can be there and feel relief that I can see.”
Hope’s health issues began in 2023, when Kotb took two weeks off from the TODAY show to deal with what she described at the time as “a family health matter.” Later, in 2024, she revealed that Hope had been hospitalized due to “a sudden, unspecified illness” which caused her to spend a little over a week in the hospital and several days in the ICU. Kotb said it “looked like she had the flu, and we literally had to race to the hospital. And you get there and you realize that it’s not that at all. And it took us going to the hospital to figure it out.”
Now that Hope’s condition is known and being managed, her mother says she’s “fine for most of the day” but “there are just moments where you have to watch her.” Fortunately, the family has gotten a handle on things, and Kotb estimates she’s monitoring her daughter for “five minutes at breakfast, five minutes at lunch, five minutes at dinner, sometimes overnight.”
“So for 23 and a half hours, she’s every other kid,” Kotb shared. “I try to remember that.”
Her advice to parents dealing with a similar situation is that even though it can be worrisome, “Don’t put your worry on your kid… Let them be kids and give them what they need when they need it.”
