HEALTHHoda Kotb Was 'Barely Functioning' During 'Simultaneous' Divorce and Breast Cancer Battle
2007 was a brutal year for Hoda Kotb.
During the Thursday, October 19, broadcast of TODAY With Hoda & Jenna, the talk show host reflected on one of the "lowest moments" in her life — when she had to battle breast cancer at the same time her marriage to Burzis Kanga came to an end after less than three years.
Hoda Kotb had to battle breast cancer while going through a divorce from her ex-husband, Burzis Kanga.
"I went through a divorce and breast cancer simultaneously, and I remembered in that time barely functioning, and I was thinking to myself like, 'Is this it? Is this how it goes?" Kotb expressed while sitting alongside her co-host Jenna Bush Hager and guest star Maria Shriver for a special edition titled Own Your Health.
"I was thinking about some of my lowest moments during that time what was contributing to all of it was I was in horrible health, and I didn’t care about that piece of it, and you don’t realize how bad it gets and then you’re compounding it, your health gets worse, because you’re not well, and [it] went on and on," Kotb detailed of the difficult point in her life nearly 15 years ago.
The talk show host opened up about the difficult time period during the Thursday, October 19, broadcast of 'TODAY.'
She continued: "You realize when you’re on solid ground again, and you look back, and you’re like, 'Oh my gosh I didn’t take an hour for myself,’ there were all the things I never ever did that I am doing today that make such a difference."
Kotb filed for divorce from Kanga, a former University of New Orleans tennis coach, in February 2007. It was that same month that Kotb previously recalled receiving a horrific phone call from her doctor informing her she had breast cancer.
Hoda Kotb and Burzis Kanga's divorce was finalized in 2008, one year after she had a double masectomy.
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Later that year, Kotb underwent a double mastectomy and reconstructive surgery.
Kotb and Kanga's divorce was finalized in 2008, and she now lives cancer-free. The exes never had children together, and the television journalist's health struggles left her unable to have a biological baby, though she shares her two adoptive daughters, Haley, 6, and Hope, 3, with her ex-fiancé Joel Schiffman.
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Hoda Kotb shares her two adopted daughters, Haley, 6, and Hope, 3, with ex-fiancé Joel Schiffman.
The 59-year-old has previously opened up about her cancer journey and the troubles she faced accepting the scars left on her body.
"You don’t realize how long the journey is," Kotb explained during an episode of her and Bush Hager's talk show in May 2022. "I remember really clearly, after my cancer surgery — I did a surgery where it was a mastectomy, but they also did a hip-to-hip incision to do some moving things around — but anyway, I remember, afterwards, having to get washed in the hospital. I hadn’t seen [the scarring], because I just hadn’t looked at it. A nurse came in to help me and she stood me in front of the mirror, and I was horrified."
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"You know when you look, and you’re like, ‘That’s me now?! Like, this is the body for the rest of my life that’s going to carry me through?' You don’t see it as: The cancer is gone. Right then, that moment, you see it as this horrible [thing]," Kotb admitted at the time.
