Hoda Kotb has more mystery man in her future.
The “Today” show co-host gushed about her “really fun” first, second and soon-to-be third dates with a “really handsome” guy on Friday.
Kotb, 59, told “Drew Barrymore Show” viewers that she had “fun … talking about something that wasn’t kids and wasn’t work.”
She explained, “It was just life, and I missed that. And he’s really handsome. Sometimes that’s it.”
Kotb hadn’t been on a date in two years before stepping out with the man, who has yet to be identified, in March.
She first spoke to Kelly Clarkson about the “great time” she had back on the dating scene.
The journalist credited her co-host Jenna Bush Hager with setting her up.
“She goes, ‘Look, I just want you to know, I don’t really know him. A friend of mine knows a friend,’” Kotb told “Entertainment Tonight.”
She praised Bush Hager, 42, for her “great picker.”
The former “Dateline” correspondent’s last long-term relationship was with ex-fiancé Joel Schiffman from 2013 to 2021.
Kotb seemingly gave insight into the end of their engagement Friday, telling Barrymore that she became “exhausted” trying to “please” her partners in relationships.
“If he was happy, then I would be happy. I wanted him to be happy. I wasn’t myself, and now I’ve gotten to a point where if the date’s not for me … I don’t mind being confident and knowing what I want.”
She is no longer “twisting [her]self into a pretzel to make everyone feel good all the time because [she’s] done that for most of [her] life.”
As for whether Kotb is open to dating men with kids — as she is the mother of daughters Haley, 7, and Hope, 5 — she prefers men who “knows what it’s like to love someone as much as we love our kids.”
The Daytime Emmy winner also pays close attention to how potential partners talk about their exes.
