Former Viewster and TODAY hostess Meredith Vieira’s been offered her own gig on The OWN Network. Queen of Talk Oprah Winfrey is wooing the newly-retired journalist for her slightly-troubled cable network, even though Vieira departed the NBC morning show because she’s tired of the daily grind and wants to spend more time with her family, inside spies have revealed to The National Enquirer’s Mike Walker.
Did you catch Meredith Vieira’s farewell show on TODAY this morning?
The tearful former View commentator ended her five-year run as co-anchor of the nation’s most-watched breakfast show surrounded by colleagues Matt Lauer, Al Roker, and Ann Curry, as well as her husband Richard Cohen, family dog Jasper, and throngs of screaming fans outside Rockefeller Center’s Studio 1A. Vieira, 57, announced her departure from TODAY last month, following months of speculation about her future on the show. She says she wants to spend more time with Cohen, a reporter who suffers from multiple sclerosis, and their three children; the youngest of whom will be heading off to college in the fall.
We’re in our final days of waking up with Meredith Vieira. Hot on the heels of weeks of innuendo, NBC confirmed on Monday that the former View pundit, who became a breakfast show fixture when she replaced Katie Couric as Matt Lauer’s co-host on The TODAY Show nearly five years ago, is leaving the nation’s most-watched AM series.
New mornings are headed for TODAY.
The Hollywood Reporter has learned that Meredith Vieira will leave her post as co-host of NBC’s The TODAY Show in June, ending a five-year tenure with the program that began when the ex-View pundit replaced exiting CBS Evening News host Katie Couric in 2006. NBC’s declined comment, but we hear that Mer will be replaced with Ann “Hello! Good Morning, Good Morning” Curry, though her contract isn’t officially up until September. TODAY correspondent Natalie Morales will take Curry’s place as newsreader.
Meredith Vieira is saying buh-bye to TODAY. Vieira is expected to depart the NBC breakfast series show when her contract expires in September, sources told TV Guide and The Hollywood Reporter Tuesday.