may have moved on from her ex-fiancé , but she fondly remembers one of their biggest relationship moments.
“Have you ever said ‘I love you’ first?” asked her cohost on the Friday, July 19, episode of Today With Hoda & Jenna. Kotb, 59, replied, “No. Neither of the times. Neither of the — whatever — three times.”
Kotb was previously married to from 2005 to 2008. She and Schiffman, 66, began dating in 2013 and got engaged six years later. Since calling it quits in 2022 after eight years together, Kotb has been on several dates with a new man.
“Joel said ‘I love you’ first,” she revealed. “I think I know what I feel, but I think you’re braver if you say it first. I think it shows that you can take a risk and you’re standing out there.”
Looking back on the moment, Kotb continued: “After he said it, [he said], ‘Don’t let me blow out here in the wind by myself, now.’ … And I said to him, I remember it, I said, ‘No. I just want to feel this for a second before I say something, before I respond.’ Because sometimes you’re so quick to respond, you don’t ever get to receive the thing.”
The memory was one Bush Hager, 42, found to be sweet. “Aw, it’s like a Hallmark movie,” she quipped before looking into the camera.
Kotb was quick to catch on that her cohost was referencing her role in the upcoming Hallmark Christmas movie Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story. “Are you just referring back to that again?” she asked. Bush Hager responded by stating she was “just thinking about my trailer.”
Kotb first announced her and Schiffman’s split during a January 2022 episode of Hoda & Jenna, saying that they were going to start the new year “on our new path as loving parents to our adorably delightful children and as friends.” (The two adopted their daughters Haley, 7, and Hope, 5, in 2017 and 2019, respectively.)
Three months later, Kotb exclusively told Us Weekly that coparenting with her ex was going smoothly. “He sees the kids,” she shared in April 2022. “He takes them to school some, and he sees them on weekends. We’ve got a really nice situation. … We make sure that the kids get plenty of him and plenty of me.”
Kotb made a rare comment about Schiffman on a March episode of Hoda & Jenna, praising him and her exes for being “super polite” people. “Like, when I get up from the table, for instance, Joel got up every time, every time, even if it’s [a] normal dinner,” she shared.
She also recalled one time when she accidentally mistook a pair of his shoes for her own. “Joel and I had the exact same pairs of sneakers, except for different sizes, I assumed,” she explained. “And when I put on his sneaker and it fit, and he was like, ‘Where are my sneakers?’ I got, ‘I don’t know,’ [and] he goes, ‘They were right here!’ … It was sad! I go, ‘Those are your sneakers?’ He goes, ‘Yeah.’ I was like, ‘Oh, my God, that is sad!’”
The Today anchor paid tribute to Schiffman on Father’s Day last month by sharing an Instagram pic of him and their girls cuddling up together on a couch. “Happy father’s day to the best dad!” she captioned the June 16 post.
