Why Tamron Hall Walked Away from Today: She Wasnt Going to Settle for Sitting on the Sidelines

Video: People.com

Last week, news broke that the ever-bubbly co-anchor was suddenly leaving NBC and the Today show just days after learning she’d be losing her 9 a.m. time slot because of the incoming former Fox News star Megyn Kelly, joining the show in September.

The fallout from the news left many shocked and disappointed, including top brass at the network. “We are disappointed that she has chosen to leave but we wish her all of the best,” NBC said in a joint statement with Hall, who added she was “excited about the next chapter.”


But in this week’s issue of PEOPLE, sources reveal what really went wrong, and why Hall, 46, an accomplished journalist who for a decade had worked her way up through the ranks at NBC, felt compelled to walk away from her dream job.

Only a couple weeks ago, things seemed to be going extremely well for Hall. On top of anchoring gigs at MSNBC Live and Dateline, she’d recently been enjoying added exposure at Today, filling in early mornings during host Savannah Guthrie’s maternity leave and hosting the 9 a.m. hour alongside Al Roker following Billy Bush’s abrupt departure in October amid the election scandal.

“Just a few days before all of this happened, she received an email [from an exec] congratulating the team for being number one,” a source close to Hall tells PEOPLE, noting that the pair had managed to outpace ABC’s long-running Live with Kelly in the key news demo for several weeks. “Then all of a sudden, it was like it vanished: Megyn Kelly is coming onboard, and who’s going to have to move? Tamron. That’s who.”