Al Roker Is Finally Home
After a monthlong hospitalization, our favorite man is back.
As we simmer in the dregs of another year, bracing for the holidays and trying to keep our heads above milky gray water, it’s in our best interest to pause and be present in moments of peace and happiness. Today’s such moment is ripped straight from the headlines. Midnights musician Taylor Swift is directing her first feature film for Fox Searchlight — just kidding; she is, but that’s not the news I’m talking about. The news I’m talking about is: After a monthlong stay in the hospital, our beloved Al Roker is finally back home.
THANK GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Roker, a steady presence in our lives and the only man we’d actually be surprised to find Me Too’d, was first hospitalized in early November for blood clots in his leg and lungs. Viewers noticed his absence from the Today show immediately — it’s much worse when he’s not there (I watch every day) (and that’s none of your business) — and speculation as to why he was gone stopped only after he announced his health struggles on November 18. He was temporarily released on Thanksgiving, missing the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade for the first time in 27 years, but was rushed back to the hospital via ambulance after only about 24 hours, and has been there since.
Roker fans and stans have been worried, but we are sighing with relief today, my friend. “Home!,” Roker wrote on Instagram Thursday night. “So incredibly grateful to family, friends, medical folks, @todayshow family and all your thoughts and prayers.”
Roker’s release comes only a day after he shared a photo of the sunrise over New York City skyline, writing in part, “Hopefully coming home soon but when your spirit sags a bit, you get to see that and recharge.”
Carrie once told Big that he couldn’t move to a vineyard in Napa because he was the Chrysler Building, and the Chrysler Building would be all wrong in a vineyard. We now know that it is in fact Al Roker who is the Chrysler Building. And the Chrysler Building is all wrong in a hospital.
We love you, Al Roker. Happy Fri-yay.*
*“Fri-yay” is sort of a Today show inside joke, iykyk.
