“I was like, ‘Are they forcing you out?’ She’s like, ‘No Craig, I’m OK. I’m leaving,’” he recalled. “I was legit stunned, so much so that after she left, I went back to her dressing room, and I was like, ‘Are you sure you’re OK?’ It takes a certain kind of courage to leave anything when you’re at the height of your game.”

Hoda Kotb put her writing skills to good use before leaving TODAY by penning a letter to her successor. Ahead of Hoda’s last day on Jan. 10, she wrote a heartfelt poem to Craig Melvin for him to read as he takes over as co-anchor of TODAY alongside Savannah Guthrie on Jan. 13.

New Today cohost Craig Melvin initially thought Hoda Kotb might be sick when she pulled him aside to tell him she was stepping down from the NBC morning show. "My dressing room is two over from hers,