Hoda Kotb logs out Today show for the last time.

On Friday, January 10, the 60-year-old journalist said goodbye to her anchor position on the NBC News show after 17 years.

“I’m not even able to express it because I’m a mess most of the time, but I just want to say thank you,” Kotb said through tears after a video tribute to her career was shown on the daytime program. “Carson (Daly), you’re like the secret to this show, man. Without you the show doesn’t run. You have the thing and you brought it with you. You bring it with you every day.”

The mother of two continued to yell at her co-hosts. “Al, you’re my first friend here, the first person I met,” she said to Al Roker. “When I got sick, you were the first person to walk into the room and say I was going to be okay.”

Kotb then turned her attention to Savannah Guthrie, who she called “my person.”

“Who’s coming for everyone? This girl,” Kotb said. “When your brother died, it was this girl. When I was going through it with Hope, it was this girl. She is in the room. She’s always in the room and I love you.”

She finished the race by revving up her replacement, Craig Melvin. “Craig, I mean, I’m so happy for you,” Kotb said. “You deserve this. This is yours. And on Monday at 7:00 a.m. I’ll be dead asleep. But you’ll be amazing. You’ll bring it home! Craig, you will be so good, you and Savannah will be magical.

Afterward, Kotb’s co-hosts brought a slew of guests to see her off, including Maria Shriver and Simone Biles, who called Kotb her “Olympic mom” and said she hopes to see the TV star at the 2028 Los Angeles Games to see.

“Hopefully we’ll be in LA together, whatever that means,” said Biles, 27. “Whatever that means for both of us.”

Kotb replied: “Simone, however you end up in LA and whatever you do, I will be there with you too. I love you.”

Kermit also came on Kotb’s last day and sang “Rainbow Connection” for Kotb, her daughters Haley, 8, and Hope, 5, and her Today Colleagues. Kotb said she played the song when she came to work on her last day.

“Hoda, you really make every day as beautiful as a rainbow,” Kermit said.

Kotb then made his way to the Today Plaza for their final farewell.

“Can I just say thank you?” said Kotb. “Can I just say thank you to every person who came here? I have read your cards. I got your bracelets My heart, thank you for coming out, for being here and for everything you have done.”

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Kotb announced in September that she planned to leave her role on Today after almost two decades.

“As I write this, my heart is all over the map,” the journalist wrote in a letter to the NBC morning show staff published on Thursday, September 26th. “I know I’m making the right decision, but it’s one.” And you’re all the reason why. You say two things can be right at the same time and I feel that I love you so much right now And It’s time for me to leave the show.

Explaining her reasoning, Kotb added in part: “My broadcasting career has been more than meaningful, a new decade of my life lies ahead of me, and now my daughters and my mother need and deserve a larger piece of my time. I’m going to miss you all.” desperate but I’m ready and excited.

However, that is Create space The podcast host shared that she plans to remain part of the NBC team. In October, she told PEOPLE that those details were still being “worked out.”

“It’s about doing some specials, doing the podcast and maybe doing the Olympics, stuff like that,” she said at the time. “It will be like this. So there will be special offers and all those things. And I think every month or so I’ll be back.” Today Showing and doing something in this space that I think will be fun.

In a PEOPLE cover story in October, Kotb discussed his departure Today show after experiencing a year of personal turmoil — including her daughter Hope, 5, suffering a sudden medical crisis in February 2023. (Kotb declined to disclose the specific illness for privacy reasons.)

After years of juggling work and being a mother to Hope and her big sister Haley, Kotb admitted it was time for a change. “There’s the guilt you carry because you can’t be 100% at work and 100% at home. If you want excellence, you have to give something. If you want to excel at work, you have to excel at home. And if you want to be excellent at home, I mean excellentand do whatever needs to happen at work. It can’t be the same,” she explained.

Another factor in her decision was the personal reflection that came with celebrating her 60th birthday in August.

“I’ve been kind of thinking about it, wondering what I want this next phase of my life to look like when I turn 60,” she told PEOPLE. “And I like adventure, I like new beginnings. I’m a sunrise person, not a sunset person, and I was wondering what does it look like for me?”

As for the future of the long-running channel, she announced a new project that was “in its infancy.”

“It’s a whole wellness situation, and that has enlightened me just through the things I’ve worked on and done on myself,” she told PEOPLE. “I learned through friends, through Jenna (Bush Hager), through Maria (Shriver), through all these different people, to do a lot of different things with breathing exercises, and I loved it.”

The TV personality added that she’s “still in the early stages” of putting together a “really good wellness app and hosting wellness retreats and stuff like that.”

When Kotb says goodbye to him Today show, Melvin, 45, will step in as her replacement starting Monday, January 13.

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Kotb celebrated the news of Melvin’s new role, telling him on air, “You’re made for this job.”

“You were literally made for this job. “You’re so good,” she added. “You have everything this job needs. You are the right person for it.”

The Today The show airs weekdays at 7 a.m. ET on NBC.