'I actually was confused.'
Hoda Kotb is speaking out after an uncomfortable moment in her interview with Vanessa Lachey. The 55-year-old Today co-host stopped by Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen on Wednesday, alongside her colleague, Jenna Bush Hager, and reflected on the sit-down she had with Vanessa and her husband, Nick Lachey, earlier this month.
While chatting with the couple, Hoda brought up Nick's ex-wife, Jessica Simpson, who she had recently interviewed about her memoir, Open Book. According to Hoda, during her chat with Jessica, the mother of three -- she shares Maxwell, 7, Ace, 6, and Birdie, 10 months, with her husband, Eric Johnson -- told her that Nick and Vanessa "sent me something beautiful when we had our children."
Vanessa didn't recall doing such a thing though, awkwardly telling Hoda during their chat, "I feel bad, I’m sorry, you said somebody sent her cause… it wasn’t us, but thank you, whoever sent it."
On WWHL, Andy revealed that he spoke to Jessica about Hoda's interview with the couple. "She came to me. Jessica. And I said, 'Nick and Vanessa told Hoda and Jenna that there was no gift,'" he recalled.
Andy said Jessica implied that she had no idea where the gift story came from. "And then she said, 'Well, I don't even know where this whole thing started.' But it started from her!"
"Here's the thing, when I was interviewing Jessica she was talking about on what great terms everyone was. Like, 'I'm so happy for them. We have children. They have children.' And she mentioned something, I thought, about a gift," Hoda explained. "So I was like, 'Oh, so everybody's happy.' So when they came I was like, 'Isn't that cool everybody's friends?' And then that wasn't the way it was received."
"I didn't understand what was going on," Hoda added. "I actually was confused."
Following the interview, fans took to Twitter to blast Vanessa's response as "tossing shade," adding that it was "super awkward" and "disappointing."
Vanessa responded to the trolls by saying that she was "correcting a statement" and "making sure we are always being honest."
"If I sent something, I'd take credit," Vanessa wrote in one tweet.
When ET's Brooke Anderson spoke to Jessica about her memoir, the singer expressed happiness about Vanessa and Nick's marriage and kids.
"I mean, we just grew apart in so many ways and you know, we both were at fault in a lot of things, but I mean, I'm happy for him now," she said of Nick, who she divorced in 2006. "He's married with three beautiful children and you know, that was his purpose, and he took heartbreak and made it into something beautiful and that's what I did as well. But you know, it took me longer to get there."
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