Hoda Kotb is showering Selena Gomez with praise for her openness about a deeply personal struggle. After Gomez shared that she cannot carry children due to her medical history, the Today show anchor—who faced her own fertility challenges—offered a heartfelt message of support.
“I think it was something she always dreamt of,” Kotb said to her co-host Jenna Bush Hager on the September 10 episode of Today. “You know how we all kind of write our story in our head? Like, ‘I’ll get married by this age, I’ll have kids then,’ and you can imagine it happening. And I think that was probably the hardest part for her.”
Gomez, the founder of Rare Beauty, recently revealed in an interview with Vanity Fair that due to her health, she won’t be able to carry her own children. The singer and actress, who has lupus and underwent a kidney transplant in 2017, opened up about the emotional journey of accepting that reality. “It’s something I had to grieve for a while,” she admitted.
Though it wasn’t the path she originally envisioned, Gomez shared that she’s in a much better place now, with surrogacy or adoption as hopeful possibilities for her future. “It’s not necessarily the way I thought it would happen,” she explained, “but I find it a blessing that there are people willing to do surrogacy or adoption.”
Kotb, who adopted daughters Haley, 7, and Hope, 5, with her ex-fiancé Joel Schiffman, related to Gomez’s experience. Reflecting on her own journey, Kotb added, “Families come in all shapes and sizes, and they are your kids 100,000 percent.”
Kotb’s words hold personal significance as she too faced unexpected obstacles on the road to motherhood. The journalist was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2007 and underwent a mastectomy as part of her treatment. While she is now cancer-free, the treatments meant she was unable to get pregnant.
During a 2021 interview with E! News, Kotb reflected on her gratitude for her two daughters, calling the experience of becoming a mom “a gift.” She admitted she used to question whether she deserved such a blessing but has since come to embrace it fully. “I used to feel almost undeserving,” she said. “But something happened within me where I thought, ‘You know what, I’m worthy of these children, I’m worthy of myself.’ I will nurture and love these little girls for as long as God lets me.”
For both Kotb and Gomez, the journey to motherhood may look different than they initially imagined, but their stories remind us that families come in many forms, and love is what truly makes them whole.
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