Hoda Kotb is getting cold feet about a potential new romance.
The former “Today” show anchor, 62, admitted she’s “scared” to pursue a relationship with a mystery man she met on a plane over the summer — despite his repeated attempts to take her on a date.
“He’s asked me to meet him out a couple of times, and I haven’t,” Kotb revealed during her guest-hosting appearance on “Today with Jenna & Sheinelle” Monday.
The journalist explained that while the two have continued texting, she has been reluctant to take their connection to the next level.
“I’ll tell you why I haven’t. One, probably, I’m scared. Two, I think I like a flirt that you don’t know what it is but it might be something,” she confessed.
“And sometimes, once you know it isn’t something, then it’s not so fun anymore, so I think I’m just sort of keeping it as a thing.”
Despite her hesitation, Kotb — who split from former fiancé Joel Schiffman in 2022 — insisted she hasn’t given up on finding love.
“But truly, like, 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,” she said. “I don’t go ‘Oh well.’ It’s not like that.”
Her longtime friend and former co-host Jenna Bush Hager encouraged her to take a chance on the mystery man, reminding Kotb of her recent commitment to going after what she wants.
“Because I’m your friend, and I heard you just say, I’m going to start asking for what I want, I’m not gonna tiptoe around things, and you say you feel like there’s something that could be there, the next time he asks, you gotta go,” Bush Hager urged.
“My friend is brave, and does things that scare her, so you gotta go on that coffee date,” she added, growing emotional.
“OK, I will go on the coffee date,” Kotb finally agreed.
The candid conversation comes nearly three months after Kotb first opened up about her unexpected connection with the handsome stranger during an August appearance on the morning show.
At the time, she recalled sitting next to the man on a flight and striking up an unusually deep conversation that left them both in tears.
“It was the weirdest connection in the world. We were both crying,” she told Bush Hager and Sheinelle Jones.
“It was strange. You know, when you have one of those [conversations where] everything is firing on all cylinders?”
According to Kotb, the man repeatedly asked, “Is this a dream? Is this real?” as they bonded midflight.
Their paths unexpectedly crossed again in France when Kotb attended the 2026 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity to promote her wellness company, Joy 101.
“Our company went to Cannes so we could talk about our company, and he was in the audience, randomly,” she recalled.
“Look. There are connections,” she added. “I don’t know what it is.”
While Kotb has kept the man’s identity under wraps, she revealed during a September sit-down with Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock that he works in the artificial intelligence industry.
The potential romance would mark a new chapter for the TV personality, who called off her engagement to Schiffman, 68, in January 2022.
The former couple began dating in 2013 and got engaged in November 2019.
They share two adopted daughters, Haley, 9, and Hope, 7.
Kotb explained at the time of their split that she and the financier had decided they were “better as friends and parents” than as a couple.
The post Hoda Kotb, 62, reveals why she’s ‘scared’ to date ‘cute’ mystery man she met on a plane appeared first on Page Six.
