Here in the final month of the 2024 TV schedule, NBC’s morning TV lineup still looks the same, but that’ll be changing on January 10, 2025, which will serve as Hoda Kotb’s final day before her previously announced exit. Her final month alongside Jenna Bush Hager looks to be fairly normal, albeit with an uptick in emotional tributes from celeb guests and retrospectives. Such as looking back to their respective early days at the show, including awkward notes from network execs.
During one part of their conversation, Kotb and Hager reflected on points in their careers where others tried to change them, at which point the latter revealed the way NBC execs more or less censored her use of colloquialisms early on. The Dallas, Texas native said this was something she dealt with upon joining TODAY as a correspondent back in 2009:
Oh yeah, they were like, ‘Hey, “y’all” isn’t for the whole country.’ And I was like, ‘But it’s who I am.’ It’s so weird, and this happens in life, too. If you have friends, and all of a sudden you’re acting not who you are, and you’re like, ‘Wait.’ Something in your gut feels wrong. . . . Like how can we teach our kids just to be perfectly happy as who they are?
Jenna Bush Hager - TODAY
Trying to get somebody from the South to stop saying "y'all" is like trying to tell a cloud to stop raining. It's just a natural instinct, and it might be easier just to get the rest of the country to start using it more regularly.
As a Louisiana native who currently resides in the DFW area, I can very easily speak to how applicable "y'all" is in various situations on a daily basis. And while it might take a short period of adjustment to hearing all morning TV hosts using that word with any amount of frequency, Kelly Clarkson is proof of concept that it's not such a polarizing term. Hager continued, questioning the decision to make that a mandate:
When they said I can’t say ‘y’all,’ in my gut I was like, ‘Why?’ What, like we have to pretend to be news people? Because whenever I tried to pretend to be a news person, I felt like I was acting, and we all know…I’m not a great actor. You try to pretend you’re somebody else, it feels crazy.
Jenna Bush Hager - TODAY
To that end, it's almost odd to hear someone on TV with any kind of a Southern twang to their voice that doesn't say "y'all" every seven or eight words. In the same way that things feel slightly askew when someone without any Southern ties tries to use "y'all" with frequency.
Hoda Kotb Shares Her Own Awkward Workplace Demand Story
Hoda Kotb kicked off the conversation with a workplace anecdote of her own that wasn't about her word choice, but something far less comfortable: her weight. As the TODAY anchor put it:
Sometimes people will tell you things that you’re not right for. I still remember I’d just started working in a small market. I played basketball in high school, so I always assumed I was in shape, even though literally after college and stuff, I wasn’t. I still remember my boss going to me, ‘Hey, Hoda.’ And I was like, ‘Yeah?’ He goes, ‘Hey, I got an idea. Maybe you might wanna get on the treadmill.’ And I go, ‘What?’ You know when you have a perception of yourself that is not the perception of the world?
Hoda Kotb - TODAY
I can't imagine ever having that conversation with anyone, from either side of it. Thankfully, that gig and the overall experience are deep in Kotb's rear-view mirror, and she's been able to move on up in the world by landing and holding onto her enviable NBC gig for all these years.
But that's all coming to an end soon after the 2025 premiere schedule kicks off in earnest, with Kotb leaving the show on January 10. She and Hager both reluctantly celebrated Craig Melvin’s promotion with bourbon after it was announced that he'd be taking over the anchor seat across three of TODAY's four hours of programming, with a permanent co-host for Hager to be cemented later.
Fans can check out the clip below to hear Hager's story in person.
Y'all best not forget to watch The TODAY Show every weekday morning on NBC starting at 7:00 a.m. ET.
