Jenna Bush Hager Reveals Her 'Heart Was Closed Off' After Hoda Kotb's Shocking 'Today' Departure

Jenna Bush Hager is missing her costar.

During the Friday, August 8, episode of TODAY With Jenna & Friends, the talk show host, 43, admitted that Hoda Kotb's absence has left a void.

Bush Hager and guest co-host Matt Rogers discussed their astrological signs. Rogers, a Pisces, confessed he could "start sobbing at any second," to which the mom-of-three, a Sagittarius, agreed.

"I cry all the time," she disclosed.

"Should we cry?" Rogers joked, while Bush Hager quipped, "If you want to."

"The thing is, for me, I do it so often that it's just like laughing. They're like, 'Here Jenna goes again,'" she explained. "When Hoda left, I stopped for a little bit. My heart was closed off."

Kotb, 60, departed Today in January to focus on her children — Haley, 9, and Hope, 6 — and launch her wellness company, Joy 101. Part of the reason why she stepped away was to tend to her youngest daughter, who has type 1 diabetes.

"It's kind of constant care for Hope. We're monitoring her 24/7..." she explained to an outlet in May. "She was getting shots — four or five a day — every day for a year. Now she is getting them less frequently because we have some other means to get her what she needs, but there's a lot to it. Some kids can have sweets and she can't. If she's up in the night, we have to take care of her at night."

Hoda maintains that Hope is "happy, healthy, rambunctious" and an "amazing kid."

"Diabetes is a part of her, but not all of her. I hope it shapes her but never defines her," the media personality expressed.

Ahead of leaving Today, Hoda protected Jenna by telling her not to sign her contract too soon.

"In the same way that I didn't envision myself working at the Today show, I never envisioned Hoda leaving," Jenna admitted during a Tuesday, July 8, podcast interview. "And in fact, she kept saying, 'Don't sign your contract.'"

Although she initially did not understand Hoda's words, she eventually realized her costar was looking out for her.

"I thought she was saying that so we could link up our contracts and be there until the same time," Jenna recalled. "But what she was doing was protecting me, because she knew I was gonna be doing the show on my own."

The duo co-hosted Today With Hoda & Jenna from April 2019 until January 10.

"I didn’t ever have one inkling of a thought that she was about to say she was leaving," Jenna said of Hoda's September 2024 announcement. "I know she loved her work and loves her work, so leaving it wasn’t something I could wrap my mind around until I sat down with her and heard her reasoning."