Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager are gearing up for the 2024 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade with a special plan. “Last year, Hoda and I devised this secret symbol, which was Hoda brushing her teeth with a finger,” Bush Hager, 43, revealed on the Wednesday episode of “Today With Hoda & Jenna.” Kotb, 60, explained that the symbol served as a “sign that I was thinking of Jenna.” This Thanksgiving will be the final holiday the fourth hour “Today” co-hosts celebrate on air together, as Kotb is set to leave the show in early 2025. The anchor has another sweet gesture in mind for the parade.
“I’ve been pondering, ‘What could it possibly be?’ And there’s only one thing it could be,” Kotb said, hinting at a dance move from Matt Rogers’ “RockaFellaCenta” music video. In the track, Rogers, 34, sings, “I wanna see Jenna Bush Hager come out the building / Because that’s where she works.” As he sings the lyric in the video, his “Las Culturistas” podcast co-host, Bowen Yang, dances with Kotb and Bush Hager.
“So, whenever I see Jenna, I go like this [dances],” Kotb continued, demonstrating the move. Bush Hager echoed her bestie’s sentiments: “We do it together. It’s sort of our call sign.” Bush Hager is determined not to miss Kotb’s gesture this year after failing to catch it last year due to a Christmas tree mishap. “Our [Christmas] tree fell over at the beginning of the parade with all the stuff on it,” the anchor confessed. “I had paused [the parade] because I was looking for [Hoda’s signal], and somebody texted me and tons [social media users said], ‘Hey Jenna, go, go. She did it, she did it.’ So then, we got to watch.”
Bush Hager shared a heartfelt shout-out on social media, posting a screenshot of Kotb pretending to wipe lipstick off her teeth from last year’s parade broadcast. “What a true one @hodakotb! Her secret sign!!!” she captioned her 2023 Instagram post. A month later, Rogers and Yang, 34, appeared on “Hoda & Jenna” to perform their cheeky holiday track live. “It’s the giving season, you guys. I’m giving you a theme song. I’m like, ‘What can I do to offer back to the culture?’” Rogers told the duo when it came to what inspired his track. “I’m walking around Rockefeller Center, which is just the most majestic place in town. And I was like, ‘RockaFellaCenta.’ I think it just popped into my head. I was like, ‘Let me put this on a full-length album.’”
Kotb began her journey with “Today” in 2007 as a host of the first fourth-hour weekday morning show. Reflecting on her decades-long career with the network in an emotional letter after announcing her departure earlier this year, she wrote, “My time at NBC has been the longest professional love affair of my life.” She continued, “I’m picturing your faces and your families and all the ways you’ve lifted me up and inspired me. That’s my heart singing. So many of my professional relationships have become some of my most cherished friendships.”
Though she’s been contemplating the move “for a while,” Kotb realized she’s truly ready for a change in her life. “My sixtieth birthday celebration on the Plaza felt like a shift,” Kotb concluded. “Like a massive, joyful YES, you are! I saw it all so clearly: my broadcast career has been beyond meaningful, a new decade of my life lies ahead, and now my daughters and my mom need and deserve a bigger slice of my time pie. I will miss you all desperately, but I’m ready and excited.” The anchor then spoke candidly about her decision on air. “I realized that it was time for me to turn the page at 60, and to try something new,” she said through tears. “I remembered standing outside looking at these beautiful bunch of people with these gorgeous signs, and I thought, ‘This is what the top of the wave feels like for me.’ And I thought it can’t get better, and I decided that this is the right time for me to kind of move on.”
Kotb, who is mom to daughters, Haley, 7, and Hope, 5, admitted that this pivot is meant to help her focus on her family more. “Obviously I had my kiddos late in life, and I was thinking that they deserve a bigger piece of my time pie that I have,” she continued. “I feel like we only have a finite amount of time. And so, with all that being said, this is the hardest thing in the world.” Craig Melvin will succeed her as Savannah Guthrie’s “Today” co-anchor, and the fourth hour will then become “Today With Jenna & Friends.” Rotating guests will continue to host until Kotb’s replacement is chosen.
The 98th Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade airs on NBC and Peacock Thursday, November 28, at 8:30 a.m. ET.
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