Hoda Kotb has revealed she may have found a romantic connection with a mystery man she met on a flight, four years after ending her engagement to Joel Schiffman.
The 62-year-old told Sheinelle Jones and Jenna Bush Hager on Friday that she recently met a "very handsome" man while flying, and that their brief encounter left them both in tears.
"It was the weirdest connection in the world. We were both crying," Kotb shared with her former Today show co-hosts.
"It was strange. You know, when you have one of those... everything is firing on all cylinders?" she continued.
Kotb recalled that the man kept asking whether the situation was a dream or if it was real.
Despite what she described as explosive chemistry, the pair went their separate ways after the flight landed.
However, they serendipitously met again when Kotb attended a business conference.
"Our company went to Cannes so we could talk about our company, and he was in the audience, randomly," she revealed.
The pair greeted each other at the event, but Kotb admitted: "But then, it all kind of just went away."
Exchanging numbers
The television anchor said that she and the mystery man have since swapped numbers and started texting each other again.
"Look. There are connections. I don't know what it is," she shared, adding that the man is "very cute" and "very handsome".
Upon hearing the story, Jones asked if they should try to find him, gushing that the encounter was romantic.
Kotb previously dated financier Joel Schiffman. The pair started their relationship in 2013 and eventually adopted two daughters together.
They announced they were preparing to marry in November 2019, but ended their relationship in January 2022 after nearly a decade together.
Epiphany at retreat
In her self-improvement memoir, Jump and Find Joy, Kotb reflected on the reasons behind their breakup, writing that she felt like everything had shifted after she attended a one-week retreat at the Hoffman Institute.
The institute helps people uncover their most powerful self, and Kotb explained she had an epiphany during her stay.
She wrote that she began to feel like a total phony in her relationship and that things suddenly felt different, calling the decision to split from Schiffman one of the best 10-second decisions of her life.
Discussing the breakup further on Today, Kotb said that sometimes a person knows a relationship is good but that it is not deepening.
"So, you continue along on the relationship. I think the truth of the matter is.. I'm an optimist. When you're an optimist, you want to make things work, and sometimes, things don't," she continued.
Co-parenting as friends
Kotb admitted that she loved Schiffman at the time and still loves him now, but that her feelings had morphed into a different kind of love.
"It just was an epiphany for me, and it took courage for me to say it. And when I did, I felt like, 'Okay, there it is'," she explained.
She insisted that she and Schiffman have always been connected and always will be, but that she believes they are better off as friends.
"You can still love and admire someone and not want to be in a relationship, a long-term relationship that way," she said.
"We will co-parent in a beautiful way, but I also think our 'us' is more of a, like, we're dear friends now," she continued.
Kotb added that the new dynamic is enjoyable and feels right, noting that the pair were recently laughing in hysterics together and that she feels it is the right relationship for them to have.
