• August 04, 2008
• Vol. 70
• No. 5

The Today Show's Hoda Kotb on the Market

By K. C. Baker

With a Little Help from Some Matchmakers—and Kathie Lee Gifford!—the Newly Single Coanchor Dips Her Toe in the Dating Pool

As the coanchor of the fourth hour of the Today show, Hoda Kotb has overseen watermelon-eating contests and dressed up like a Munster. But she wasn't quite prepared for the day professional matchmakers Jill Kelleher and Amber Kelleher-Andrews were guests—and fellow host Kathie Lee Gifford got a gleam in her eye. Within minutes, Gifford was asking the experts if they could find some suitable companions for Kotb, who got divorced in February. "She'd be kicking herself if she didn't give it a try," Gifford explains. Kotb herself wasn't so sure: "I was thinking to myself, oh no. I am not going to be doing that."

Think again. Prodded by Gifford and helped by the Kellehers, Kotb has now gone on dates with several high-powered bachelors, and she's loving every minute of it. Her first outing was taped for Today, but Kotb's subsequent suitors (some of whom she's found on her own) have been kept under wraps. And while she doesn't have a list of requirements, she knows a match when she meets one. "Who'd have thought that at 43, I'd look at someone and think, 'I wonder if he's gonna kiss me?'" says Kotb, who also battled breast cancer as her marriage was ending. "I've got butterflies again. It's like high school—only in high school, I had frizzy hair and stop-sign glasses. This is so much better."