Every morning since January 14, 1952, the Today show on NBC has broadcast live into millions of homes across the country. Over the years, for many Americans, the anchors have come to feel as much like a part of their lives as their own neighbors and coworkers. “Every time I meet one of the viewers, I’m reminded that we are part of people’s families,” says Craig Melvin, who’s been a Today anchor since 2018 and on Monday will step up to the role of co-lead anchor, filling the shoes of Hoda Kotb, who is retiring after seventeen years on the show. “That’s one of the great honors of the job. That’s also what makes our little show so very special, and I think it’s part of the reason the show has endured for more than seventy years now.”
As Melvin steps further into the spotlight, we caught up with the native South Carolinian to get a peek into his life when the cameras aren’t rolling.
Looking back at your childhood in Columbia, were there any things you see now that helped prepare you for this job?
It sounds cliché, but my mom really helped prepare me for what I do professionally. As a journalist, we ask questions and we bear witness to history, and my mother has never met a stranger. From the time I was a little boy, and even more so now, she talked to anybody about anything for as long as they wanted to. There was this curiosity that I think I developed at a young age, by and large, because I saw that in her.
She was the first in the family to go to college, the first in the family to get a graduate degree. She went out of her way to expose us to things—to people, to places, to events, to ideas—that she hadn’t been exposed to. I played the violin, I took magic classes, I participated in oratorical contests when I was very young, because my mom thought that sort of thing was important. At the time we whined and just pitched a fit, but lo and behold, she may have been right.
Melvin on the Today show set.
When you go home to Columbia, where’s the first place you go?
My younger brother’s house. We always stay with him because his boys and my two kids are about the same ages, and so it’s good built-in cousin time. My second stop is typically somewhere downtown to grab a bite. My buddy Kristian [Niemi] owns a couple restaurants in Columbia. We love Bourbon on Main Street. And he’s got Black Rooster in West Columbia, which we also really enjoy. We love Hall’s. Columbia has some great food, and that’s something that’s only developed over the last fifteen years or so.
You’re a self-proclaimed bourbon lover. What’s on your bar right now?
Ah, the brown nectar of the gods. I usually keep about twenty-five or thirty different ones on my bar in my basement, but what I’m loving right now is Forbidden by Marianne Eaves. She was the first female master distiller in Kentucky, and I did a profile on her last year and tried Forbidden for the first time. The bottle was beautiful, and I was struck by that. And then I started tasting it was like, Oh my God, this is perfectly balanced.
What are you listening to right now?
Chris Stapleton. And I have a gospel music playlist that I listen to for about thirty minutes every morning that I’ve cultivated over the years—both classic stuff and new stuff.
Do you have an all-time favorite song?
“Let Her Cry” by Hootie & the Blowfish. A few years ago, we were doing a story with Darius [Rucker] and he let me sing a little bit during sound check—and then promptly cut me off. It was fair, I was off key.
You talk to people for a living. What’s your go-to conversation starter?
“Where are you from?” I have always found that when you ask someone where they’re from, it typically leads to a larger conversation because people are very passionate about and proud of wherever they grew up, wherever they live.
If it’s New Jersey, I ask them which exit—everyone in Jersey will give you their exit. If it’s Michigan, they hold up their hand and they show you the mitten. I was just talking to a woman the other day, and I asked, Where are you from? And she said, Alabama. I said, War Eagle or Roll Tide? And it started a whole conversation. Especially if you’re from the South, where you’re from really matters.
