Hoda Kotb had an “Anchorman” moment during her first big break on TV when she was so nervous she introduced herself by the wrong name.
The “Today” star told us at the premiere of “Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues” Sunday, “The first time I filled in anchoring I was totally paranoid and scared . . . There was an anchorwoman who was . . . off that day and I happened to show up for work in a blazer. The prompter — I’ll never forget it — said ‘Good evening, I’m Hoda Kotb. Ann Martin is off tonight,’ and they hit the red light and they cued me and I looked in the camera and I said, ‘Good evening, I’m Ann Martin.’ Ann Martin was a legend in that town. I still remember it in slow motion.”
Martin, on whom Christina Applegate’s character is said to be based, was LA’s KABC-TV’s anchor from the early 1980s to 1994, before moving to KCBS. Kotb said, “It was like the worst newscast in the history of the world . . . It was a disaster . . . It was like saying, ‘I’m Oprah,’ and people were like, ‘No you’re not.’ ”