Walker Hayes brought Hoda Kotb to tears with a heartfelt surprise performance of “Wednesdays” during the “Hoda-bration” on her final episode of Today with Hoda & Jenna on Friday morning (Jan. 10).
Hoda Kotb and her co-host Jenna Bush Hager reminisced about past episodes and Kotb’s long-standing hosting career on The TODAY Show. Bush highlighted Kotb as not only “an award-winning journalist” with “great hair” but also “a singer/songwriter.” The pair of co-hosts then discussed the song, with Kotb sharing how it came to fruition with Walker Hayes after they chatted on a podcast.
“That song, by the way… I was talking to Walker on a podcast, and we talked about how life is full of exclamation points [like] ‘great days,’ ‘It’s a girl,’ ‘she said yes,’ ‘you won’ and sad days [such as] ‘he didn’t make it,’ ‘you have cancer,’ ‘it’s over,’ but I said most days are just Wednesdays or regular days. If you love your Wednesdays, you’ll love your life,” Kotb explained.
After discussing the song, Bush Hager asked the show’s producers to play a snippet of it for the audience. Moments later, Walker Hayes entered the Studio 8G stage, strumming his acoustic guitar as he made his way to the microphone stand to perform “Wednesdays.” Tears streamed down Hoda Kotb’s face as she saw Hayes and sang along to every word of the song she helped cowrite.
“Some days are the best days/ Some days are ‘she said yes’ days/ Some days are ‘it’s a girl/ good lord how in the world did I get this blessed’ days/ Some days are the worst days/ on the taillights of a hearse days/ and I can’t figure out it and I don’t wanna talk about it/ guess that why I go to Church days/ most days are just Wednesdays/ get up and do the same ol same agains day,” Hayes sang as Kotb and Bush and a live studio audience watched on.
Hayes’ performance was met with a roaring applause and even more tears from Kotb as she embraced him in a hug.
Watch Walker Hayes Perform For Hoda Kotb HERE
“Hoda wrote that! She wrote that song,” Hayes gushed to the crowd after declaring the song a “smash.” Kotb then praised the heartfelt performance and tune. “Walker, that was so incredibly beautiful. You, your friend Lori [McKenna] and I were on a Zoom,” Kotb said as Hayes chimed in, “It was her idea… she’s gonna try to push it off. It was all you.”
The clip concluded with Kotb in tears, explaining, “By the way, I feel like that’s what I love the most about this show. It’s just been Wednesdays, like every day’s been a good Wednesday.” In addition to Walker Hayes, several of Hoda Kotb’s friends showed up virtually and in person to say goodbye, including Kermit The Frog, Oprah Winfrey, Jamie Lee Curtis, Simone Biles, Gayle King, Jimmy Fallon and more as well as her TODAY Show co-anchors and family.
Hoda Kotb, who has a longstanding friendship with Hayes, has been a part of the NBC News family since 1998, when she joined as a Dateline correspondent. She has co-anchored The TODAY Show alongside Savannah Guthrie since 2018.
