Willie Geist Reflects on 10 Years of “Sunday Today ”and How He Convinced His Wife to Let Him Work 6 Days a Week (Exclusive)
Willie Geist Reflects on 10 Years of “Sunday Today ”and How He Convinced His Wife to Let Him Work 6 Days a Week (Exclusive)
Alex RossThu, April 23, 2026 at 7:10 PM UTC
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Willie Geist appears on 'Sunday Today' on June 16, 2019Credit: Mike Smith/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty -
Will Geist is looking back at a decade of Sunday Today
The broadcaster caught up with PEOPLE to mark his latest on-air milestone
Sunday Today airs Sundays at 8 a.m. ET on NBC.
Willie Geist is stopping to smell the roses.
The broadcaster, 50, has spent the month of April celebrating. On April 7, he marked his fifth-ever Sunday Sitdown Live with Ryan Reynolds, and on April 12, Sunday Today aired its official 10th anniversary special with a look back at the more-than 375 interviews Geist has conducted in the last decade.
"The first show, our guest was Leslie Odom Jr. He was Burr in Hamilton at the height of Hamilton hysteria at that point. And we got him to do the show and that was a huge boost that he would agree to do it," Geist tells PEOPLE of "building" the show in the early years.
He adds, "It takes time. Nothing happens overnight. And I think we're able now, 10 years, to look back and say, 'It's been worth it. It's been a blast.'"
Willie Geist for 'Sunday Today'Credit: Peter Kramer/NBC News
Over the last decade, Geist has driven around with Al Pacino, gone fishing with David Letterman, toured Times Square on a double decker bus with Rachel Brosnahan and had lunch in Harlem with Ice Cube. "They're all seared in some way in my mind," he says of each sit down. "I just feel lucky to be in those rooms. I still do."
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Ten years ago, Geist was already a Today staple. On weekdays, he was leading the 3rd hour of the show alongside Al Roker and then-anchors Tamron Hall and Natalie Morales. He also was co-hosting Morning Joe on MSNBC when the powers that be offered him the "weekends" — plural — at Today.
"I couldn't figure out how to make seven days a week work with young children and a wife and expectations of being around my family, which is fair," he says. "So, I got them down to Sunday."
"And even then, I remember sitting with my wife—we were skiing. The kids were in ski school and I took her to lunch, made sure she ordered a glass of wine. It was over the holidays. I said, 'So I'm going to be doing a Sunday Today show.' And she's like, 'OK, and what about the other shows?' I'm like, 'Yeah, those are... going to be there too,'" he adds with a laugh.
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Willie Geist and Christina Geist attend the 2022 A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Cure Parkinson's on October 29, 2022 in New York City.Credit: Bryan Bedder/Getty
Fortunately for Geist, his wife — middle-school sweetheart Christina Sharkey Geist — was supportive. As the broadcaster puts it, it was an opportunity they knew he couldn't say "no" to.
"It wasn't really like I was starting from scratch, although we had free reign to do that within the Today show ecosystem with all the brand recognition and the support that comes with that. So it was kind of a perfect deal," he says. "And to put your name on the Today show, which doesn't happen often, or ever? I couldn't pass it up."
Geist, who still hosts MS NOW's Morning Joe on weekdays, feels there is more than enough runway left for Sunday Today to keep going as he looks to the future.
"People are like, 'Well, you've had everyone on.' It's true we've had a lot of great names, but there are also a bunch of people we haven't had on. When you think about somebody like, I don't know, Tom Hanks or Taylor Swift or Jay-Z, who I loved growing up, there's always that wishlist of people who still haven't been on the show."
He adds, "We've had many of my heroes and many of the people I grew up loving. And then there are going to be new people who come along. It can't really get old because there's so many new and interesting people who come down the pike."
Ina Garten and Willie Geist at 'Sunday Sitdown Live' in May 2025Credit: Marc J. Franklin
Sunday Today also has a loyal audience. Fans tune in each week at 8 a.m. to watch with their oversized, yellow Sunday Today mugs — and they even submit photos, affectionally dubbed "mugshots," of themselves doing so.
"I think we've found an audience that likes spending time with us for an hour and shows up for us and comes to these live events and buys our mugs and connects with us on social media in a very organic way that we didn't even design. That came from the viewers," Geist says, thanking his "small but mighty" Sunday Today team for their commitment to bringing the show to life.
"We have an audience that trusts us and we're so grateful to them," he says. "I think we're just going to try to keep giving them what they've come to love and what hopefully feels comfortable on a Sunday morning."
Sunday Today airs Sundays at 8 a.m. ET on NBC.
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