The Today show crew is making ready to say their remaining goodbye as Hoda Kotb hosts her final present on Friday, January 10.
After seven years within the co-anchor seat subsequent to Savannah Guthrie, Kotb is formally retiring.
However earlier than she indicators off for the final time and leaves her anchor chair behind, the folks within the Right now show management room pulled one final prank on Kotb.
After getting back from break following the primary half hour of the present, Guthrie started the script.
“We’re again at 7:30 it’s Friday morning,” Guthrie mentioned. “And it’s a day of blended feelings as we get able to say goodbye to an icon right here at 30 Rock.”
“Let’s face it, all around the globe we’ll be counting right down to it,” Guthrie continued as she started to giggle and the cameras panned their method over to the Rockefeller Heart Christmas tree that’s nonetheless lit up and standing behind the Right now studio in New York Metropolis.
“Sure, our beloved Christmas tree is coming down tomorrow.”
The prank turned what would have been tears into stomach laughs as Kotb, Guthrie and Kotb’s successor Craig Melvin realized Guthrie wasn’t speaking about Kotb however the iconic Christmas tree so many individuals journey to see every vacation season.
“What? Did you suppose we had been speaking about one thing else?” Guthrie joked as Kotb buried her face in her palms.
Guthrie and Melvin praised the management room for his or her mood-lightening joke.
“Sensible,” Melvin added. “They needed to have one final crack at you,” Guthrie mentioned to Kotb on behalf of these within the management room.
Kotb resolution to retire comes after celebrating her sixtieth birthday on the Right now plaza.
She mentioned she noticed her profession so clearly and knew it was time to shift her focus to her beloved mother and her two younger daughters.
Previous to her remaining broadcast, Kotb took to Instagram to share a fast message, writing, “How fortunate am I to have one thing that makes saying goodbye so arduous.”