Hoda Kotb and ex-fiancé Joel Schiffman are celebrating their daughters’ new school year.
“It’s here! First day of school💥. 4th and 2nd grade! Whaaaatttt?” Kotb, 62, wrote via Instagram on Tuesday, September 8, alongside photos of herself and Schiffman, 68, walking daughters Haley, 9, and Hope, 7, to school.
In one photo, Kotb and Schiffman stood between their kids outside their home as the family of four smiled at the camera.
Kotb and Schiffman began dating in 2013 and adopted Haley in 2017, followed by Hope in 2019. The pair got engaged later that year.
In January 2022, Kotb revealed on the Today show that she and Schiffman had amicably ended their engagement.
“Joel and I have had a lot of prayerful and meaningful conversations over the holidays, and we decided that we are better as friends and parents than we are as an engaged couple, so we decided we are going to start this new year on our new path as loving parents to our adorably delightful children and as friends,” she said at the time. “It’s not like something happened. They say sometimes relationships are meant to be there for a reason, a season or a lifetime; this was for a season.”
Despite their split, Kotb and Schiffman have remained committed to coparenting their daughters. In April 2022, the former Today host exclusively told Us that they had an “easy” dynamic.
“He sees the kids,” she said at the time. “He takes them to school some, and he sees them on weekends. We’ve got a really nice, easy situation.”
Kotb added that she and the financier were trying their “best” to make the situation work.
“We make sure that the kids get plenty of him and plenty of me,” she concluded.
Later, Kotb opened up about the reason behind their split, admitting that they were “growing at different paces.”
“Joel is one of the best people I know, and he really is a great human being,” she explained on “The Jamie Kern Lima Show” in August 2024. “And I feel like I’m a pretty great human being, but sometimes two great human beings together isn’t quite enough to make it work.”
Kotb further broke down their split in her September 2025 book, Jump and Find Joy: Embracing Change in Every Season of Life.
“There was no cheating, no scandal, no big crisis. It sounds cliché, but truth is, we were just growing apart,” she wrote. “There wasn’t the drama you hear about in all the great country songs. The no-good, two-timing, whiskey-loving heartbreakers. It simply wasn’t us.”
Kotb was previously married to tennis coach Burzis Kanga from 2005 to 2008.
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