Al Roker Bolted Off the Today Set Days After Sunny Hostin’s Jury Story Fell Apart

Sunny Hostin bragged on The View that she single-handedly spared the Butcher of Tompkins Square Park a murder conviction.

Six days later, Al Roker walked off the Today set in the middle of a live broadcast.

Where Roker rushed off to next shows exactly what Sunny Hostin got so badly wrong.

Savannah Guthrie Announced a Little Switcheroo on Live TV

Roker handled the forecasts through the first stretch of the September 28 broadcast, then he was gone.

"We have Dylan taking over for Al, who had to leave a little bit early," Savannah Guthrie told viewers.

Dylan Dreyer shrugged it off as a "little switcheroo again this morning."

Craig Melvin said Roker had to "step out for just a little bit" and would be back the next day.

Sports reporter Kaylee Hartung took his seat for the third hour.

For longtime viewers, an unexplained Roker exit is enough to make your stomach drop.

In November 2022, blood clots in his leg traveled to his lungs, and he missed the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade for the first time in 27 years.

That scare came two years after his 2020 prostate cancer diagnosis.

Roker Posted His Answer From Outside a New York Courthouse

The 72-year-old's update came from the courthouse steps.

"Well, got out of the Today show early because I've got jury duty," Roker said in an Instagram video. "It's everybody's civic duty to do the duty."

Then he caught the double "duty" and started laughing.

The caption read, "Hey now!!! All rise!! Time for #juryduty."

No celebrity pass, no publicist's note, no rescheduling.

New York wouldn't have handed him one anyway.

The state court system puts it flatly: "There are no automatic exemptions or excuses from jury service in New York State."

Sunny Hostin Claimed She Flipped Eleven Jurors in a Cannibal Case

Now look at what happened on The View on September 22.

Hostin announced she sat on the 1991 trial of Daniel Rakowitz, who killed his roommate Monika Beerle, a 26-year-old dance student, and boiled her remains.

"One holdout juror was principally responsible for preventing them from returning a guilty verdict," she said. "That was me."

She described how "one-by-one I picked them off."

She said the nine days of deliberations got so heated that "one juror threw a chair at me."

The jury found Rakowitz not guilty by reason of insanity, and in 2010 a court ordered him kept at the maximum-security Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center on Ward's Island.

Hostin calls Kirby "a different type of prison."

"Jury duty is duty," she added. "It is one of the most important things I think I've ever done in my life."

Alyssa Farah Griffin gasped, "And you got this guy off?!"

Even Star Jones wanted distance: "Excuse me, can I move over? I don't need to be here."

The 1991 Newspapers Tell a Different Story About Hostin's Jury

Then reporters pulled the old clips.

Back in 1991, jurors told the New York Post, Newsday, the Daily News and the Associated Press that the real holdout was an unemployed man who wanted to keep the trial going and keep getting paid.

"He was unemployed and liked the $15 a day and the three free meals," juror Valerie Holmes told Newsday.

Newsday reported that 10 jurors wanted a murder conviction and two held out.

That puts Hostin, at most, as one of two holdouts – nowhere near the one-woman flip she described on air.

And a 22-year-old paralegal named Asunción Cummings – Sunny Hostin's name at the time – told Newsday this: "We had to compromise. But it is obvious to me he butchered the body and he literally got away with murder."

When the Post asked her about it, Hostin doubled down: "I was. I was the holdout juror."

Roker Showed Up for Jury Duty While Hostin Rewrote Hers

Roker handled his summons the way millions of working Americans do.

He cracked a dad joke, told his audience the truth, and reported for duty.

Hostin took the trial of a murdered young woman and turned it into a daytime TV hero story.

In 1991, she told a reporter the killer got away with murder.

In 2026, she told America she was the reason.

Neither version belongs in a victory lap over Monika Beerle's murder.

Hostin was right about one thing – jury duty is duty.

A juror is supposed to weigh the evidence, go home, and leave the victim some dignity.

Roker got that right on his way into a courthouse.

Hostin, a former federal prosecutor, still hasn't figured it out 35 years later.

Sources:

• Gabriela Silva, "Al Roker Addresses His Abrupt Exit From the 'Today' Show During Live Broadcast: 'A Little Switcheroo,'" Parade, September 28, 2026.
• Dempsey May Ayuco, "Al Roker reveals why he suddenly left 'Today' mid-broadcast," Rolling Out, September 28, 2026.
• Nicholas Fondacaro, "Sunny Hostin Brags She Was Holdout Juror Who Kept Killer Out of Prison," NewsBusters, September 22, 2026.
• Alexander Hall, "Sunny Hostin's holdout juror claim complicated by conflicting reports from infamous 1991 murder trial," Fox News, September 25, 2026.
• Marlene Lenthang, "Sunny Hostin was holdout juror in 1991 Daniel Rakowitz trial," NBC New York, September 23, 2026.
• Cassie Maynard, "'Today' show's Al Roker misses 1st Thanksgiving Day Parade in 27 years; leaves hospital after blood clot scare," Fox News, November 25, 2022.
• New York State Unified Court System, "Juror Questions & Answers (FAQs)," nycourts.gov.