Hoda Kotb is spilling the tea on the “very handsome” man she encountered on a recent flight.
“Here’s what I think about my future relationship life, because I’ve been thinking about this,” the 62-year-old talk show host told "Today" show co-host Jenna Bush Hager on Monday, Nov. 9's episode when asked for updates on the “cute boy" she met on the plane and whether or not they’d seen each other. “I believe that as I am going through life that there is going to be a person who shares more than just the things that mattered to me when I was younger.”
Explaining that she's looking for someone with whom she can connect spiritually and emotionally, Kotb said: “I think that’s coming. And I think I have to take risks to get it.”
"If I were to swallow a truth
pill right now, I do believe … I’m 62 years old, I have two young kids, and I believe the love part of my life is a piece that’s coming,” Kotb said. “I don’t go, ‘Oh well.’”
However, she admitted that she is yet to gather the courage to seek it out, saying that though she's been in touch with the mystery man from the plane "through text and stuff," she is yet to meet him, even though "he’s asked me to meet him out a couple of times.”
Kotb: 'Probably I'm scared'
Kotb attributed her hesitancy to fear and doubt about her flirting skills.
“One, probably I’m scared," Kotb said. "Two, I think I like a flirt that you don’t know what it is, but it might be something. And sometimes once you know it isn’t something, then it’s not so fun anymore. So I think I’m sort of just keeping it as a thing.”
Hager, however, encouraged her former co-anchor to pursue the connection and consider meeting up with the man.
“The next time (he) asks, you gotta go,” Hager urged. “Because my friend is brave and does things that scare her, so I want you to go on that coffee date.”
Hager's encouragement seemed to strike a chord with Kotb, who emotionally responded: “Okay, I will go on a coffee date.”
Kotb says she is 'all the way ready' to find love
In August, Kotb revealed that she exchanged phone numbers with a “very handsome” man that she’d recently encountered on a flight.
“You know when you have one of those moments (where) everything is firing on all cylinders,” Kotb shared. “He kept saying, ‘Is this a dream? Is this real?’”
Kotb previously told USA TODAY that she was "all the way ready" to find her forever love.
"Mine is coming, and I know that," she said in September. "And I'm not saying it because 'Yay, I really hope …' I'm not hoping, I'm not wishing, I know. So when it is right and when he steps in, I'm ready, like all the way ready."
She was previously married to University of New Orleans tennis coach Burzis Kanga from 2005 to 2007, when she filed for divorce. Kotb shares her adopted daughters, Haley Joy and Hope, with former fiancé Joel Schiffman. She announced they'd called off their engagement in 2022.
Contributing: Taijuan Moorman / USA TODAY
Saman Shafiq is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Reach her at sshafiq@usatodayco.com and follow her on X and Instagram @saman_shafiq7.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Hoda Kotb spills the tea on 'very handsome' man she met on flight
