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Hoda Kotb and Joel Schiffman, seen in 2018, adopted two...

Hoda Kotb and Joel Schiffman, seen in 2018, adopted two daughters. Credit: Getty Images for Time / Dimitrios Kambouris

"Today" co-anchor Hoda Kotb and her financier fiance, Joel Schiffman, have called off their engagement.

Kotb, 56, acknowledged on her NBC morning show Monday that, "People have written in and asked why I wasn't wearing my engagement ring. And Joel and I … had a lot of prayerful and really meaningful conversations over the holidays and we decided that we're better as friends and parents than we are as an engaged couple. So we decided we are going to start this new year and begin it kind of on our new path as loving parents to our adorable, delightful children, and as friends."

Kotb, who began her relationship with Schiffman in 2013 and became engaged in November 2019, adopted daughters Haley Joy Kotb, who turns 5 this month, in 2017 and Hope Catherine Kotb, now 2, in 2019. Schiffman, 63, has a grown daughter, Kyle Schiffman. "It's not like something happened," Kotb said of the breakup. "They say sometimes relationships are meant to be there for a reason, for a season or for a lifetime. And I feel like ours was meant to be there for a season."

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