Hoda Kotb Empathizes with Selena Gomez After She Reveals She Can't Carry Her Own Children: 'Other Ways of Having a Family' (original) (raw)

Hoda Kotb, Selena Gomez. Photo:

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Hoda Kotb is relating to Selena Gomez, after she recently revealed she's unable to carry her own children despite her strong desire to become a mother.

Speaking to Vanity Fair for the outlet’s October issue, published Monday, Sept. 9, the Rare Beauty founder, 32, revealed, "I unfortunately can’t carry my own children.” Kotb, 60, then touched on the topic on the Tuesday, Sept. 10 episode of Today with Hoda and Jenna, recalling her personal experience welcoming her daughtersHaley, 7, and Hope, 5, through adoption with ex-fiancé Joel Schiffman.

"I think it was something that she dreamt would always happen," the news anchor said of Gomez before thinking back to when she came to terms with her own fertility struggles.

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"You know how you kind of write your story in your head? [Like,] ‘I’ll get married sometime here or there or at this age, and then I’ll have kids,’ and you can kind of imagine it?" she asked co-host Jenna Bush Hager. "I think that was probably the toughest part, is like, you know that you can see it.”

Kotb then called the Only Murders in the Building actress "mature" and "cool" for her impressive reaction to the grief that comes with this tough revelation.

“But because she’s so mature and just cool, she said she had to grieve for a while, but then she realized there are other ways of having a family,” Kotb shared. “And she says she does plan to start with surrogacy or adoption.”

Thinking of her loving family of three, the Today co-host added, "Families come in so many different shapes and sizes," and regardless of how your kids are welcomed, "They are your kids, a hundred thousand percent."

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Selena Gomez.

Mert Alper Dervis/Anadolu via Getty

While speaking with Vanity Fair, Gomez explained her complications, sharing, "I have a lot of medical issues that would put my life and the baby’s in jeopardy. That was something I had to grieve for a while.”

Gomez has previously spoken about suffering from complications with lupus, which she was diagnosed with in 2015. She also revealed her bipolar diagnosis in April 2020 during an episode of Miley Cyrus' Instagram Live show Bright Minded.

She added, “[But] I’m in a much better place with that. I find it a blessing that there are wonderful people willing to do surrogacy or adoption, which are both huge possibilities for me.”

“It made me really thankful for the other outlets for people who are dying to be moms. I’m one of those people,” she continued. “I’m excited for what that journey will look like, but it’ll look a little different. At the end of the day, I don’t care. It’ll be mine. It’ll be my baby.”