In speaking, he allowed others to be human too.

He talked about therapy. About learning that resilience is not silence. About discovering that joy doesn’t diminish when shared with honesty—it deepens.

And in those final minutes, the broadcast shed its practiced ease and became something rare: a communal unmasking. A veteran broadcaster, beloved across generations, ended his career not with a highlight reel but with truth—raw, unguarded, liberating.

When he stepped away from the desk, he wasn’t the cheerful icon America thought it knew.

He was something much greater: