Kit Hoover’s been on your TV screen for 30 years. In the first season of MTV’s 1995 reality show Road Rules, when she was 24 years old, she charmed America with her sparkling Southern charisma. She has since built an enduring career in broadcast journalism and entertainment—alongside a busy off-screen family life raising three children.
Since 2010, Hoover’s been the lovable, bubbly host of the daily entertainment news show Access Hollywood, becoming the longest-reigning host in the show’s history. She also co-hosts Access Daily with Mario & Kit with Mario Lopez.
At age 54, she’s never been more excited about the future, thanks in large part to the launch of her new biweekly podcast, The Coop with Kit, in which she interviews famous women over 40 who are just hitting their stride.
The Road to Hollywood
Being on TV was never part of Hoover’s plan. She studied journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a few years after graduation secured a dream job with a high-profile advertising firm. But the day she got the job offer, MTV called.
Excited by the opportunity to be on Road Rules, a first-of-its-kind reality program in which five cast members would be filmed as they traveled cross-country in an RV together, she asked her new employer if she could defer her start date. They agreed. Hoover’s parents also urged her to go for the MTV gig, her mother saying, “Life is not a dress rehearsal”—a sentiment that has since become one of Hoover’s guiding principles.
Despite being a bit chagrined by the “party girl” branding the show gave her at the outset, the experience of being on Road Rules was overwhelmingly positive. “I loved every bit of it,” Hoover says. “I’d already seen what it was like a little bit to dip your toe in the real world… so I was just grateful that I was on this kind of fun boondoggle.”
Hoover never did go back to her advertising job. While the stream of opportunities she’d hoped would follow from her exposure on MTV didn’t at first materialize, she eventually secured a spot on a news magazine show called American Journal. It was here she learned the art of “making a moment”—like the time the petite host put her shoe inside Shaquille O’Neal’s much larger shoe during an interview. Then, as a correspondent at Fox Broadcasting with longer-format shows to fill, she says she “learned the art of storytelling.” Her growing portfolio helped land her subsequent opportunities on ESPN and guest spots on The View.
All Access, Her Way
After taking some time away from her career to spend at home with her young children, Hoover was offered an audition with Access Hollywood. Despite her feeling she “botched” the interview, she was offered the job. She stepped back on set at age 40 and relocated her family to Pasadena, California—close enough to work in Los Angeles but out of the fray of Hollywood.
After 15 years on the show, there’s not an A-list star Hoover hasn’t rubbed shoulders with. She’s a regular on award-show red carpets, and she’s hosted special programs with stars like Kevin Costner and commentated the Olympic Games. On the day of our interview, she was preparing for an interview with Snoop Dog.
Hoover attributes her longevity in the business, in part, to learning how to adapt to changing conditions and helping to create a supportive environment. “I thrive on being a teammate. I love making other people feel good or teeing them up or cheering them on,” she says. The ethos carries over to her interviews with celebrities, too. Her top priority, she says, is to make guests feel comfortable. “I’m not into something going viral because somebody’s not at their best,” she says. Hoover is also passionate about creating a supportive work environment by mentoring her young associates, assistants and interns, all of whom, she says, “have gone on to unbelievable things.”
Handing Over the Mic
In recent years in her hosting job at Access Hollywood, Hoover noticed a shift among the middle-aged and older female celebrity guests she was interviewing—citing examples like Halle Berry and Jean Smart—who were taking on physically demanding movie roles, winning acting awards and thriving long into their careers. The idea for a podcast dedicated to women over 40 began to simmer.
“I’m thinking, ‘What is in the water? What are we doing different? What can I learn from these women?’ And I feel like it was a voice that nobody was really talking to.”
Her long career in Hollywood has helped jump-start The Coop With Kit podcast, which debuted last spring. She built the guest schedule simply by texting notable women who happened to be in her phone contacts, inviting them to come on the show. The roster is impressive: Cindy Crawford, Katie Couric, Jessica Alba, Elizabeth Hurley and many others have joined Hoover for candid, highly personal conversations.
Hoover says each guest has left her with incredible insights. “I’m so moved. I feel so alive, and I hope they feel the same way…. I’ve taken a nugget from each one, and they stay with me.”
The podcast will soon hit the road for a series of events with live audiences across the country. Hoover is also working on a book on positive mindset, filled with stories from her life and some of the Southern maxims that have become part of her calling card.
Running Her Own Race
It is her contented childhood in Atlanta, Georgia, that Hoover’s attributes much of her lasting positivity and success to. She remains extremely close with her brother, dad and mom (whom she affectionately calls “Bug” and continues to phone daily). Growing up, the family spent quality time together, often running 10K races on weekends and playing tennis on a court her father built in their yard. “I think that set us on a path for discipline and success.”
Hoover excelled at running in high school and college, an activity she still enjoys for fitness. But despite the competitiveness often associated with sports, she believes one of the strongest values her parents imparted was to prioritize personal growth for its own sake. “We really, our whole life, have been told to run our own race and don’t compare yourself to anybody,” she says. “That’s the thief of joy…. Find that internal, inner peace.”
It’s a sunniness that Hoover routinely exhibits, even during the most trying of circumstances—like when her home burned down several years ago while she was pregnant with her third child. The family lost all their belongings, yet still, she found herself filled with gratitude for the fact that no one was hurt in the fire. “I’m not a rearview mirror person,” she says. “I’m not wired for it…. I never look backwards.”
With two of her kids having flown the nest already and the third headed to college in the fall, Hoover is leaning into that perspective. “I get so excited that they’re launching and are leading these… big lives. That brings me so much joy.”
It also gives Hoover the opportunity to focus on her own ambitions. She says with a grin, “It’s Mom’s time to fly.”
This article appears in the May/June issue of SUCCESS® magazine. Photo from Kit Hoover.
