Rumors have been swirling the past few weeks about the departure of Ann Curry from the Today Show. On Thursday morning, she made it official by announcing that she will be leaving the Today Show and taking on a new challenge at NBC News. She had been in the co-anchor role for about a year. On air, a tearful Ann Curry stated “This is not easy to say, but today is going to be my last morning as a regular co-host of TODAY. I will still be a part of the TODAY show family, but I’m going to have a new title and a new role. This is not how I expected to ever leave this couch after 15 years.”

As TODAY Anchor at Large and National and International Correspondent for NBC News, Curry will lead a new team covering stories spanning the globe. She’ll anchor prime-time specials and report for TODAY, Nightly News, Rock Center, Dateline and MSNBC, and will have a major presence across all digital properties.

Over 15 years at NBC News, Ann has covered violence and ethnic cleansing in Sudan, interviewed the Dalai Lama, and broke the news that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would release the two American hikers held hostage in that country for two years. She has earned seven Emmy Awards.

Ann spoke directly to viewers. “Matt and I, and everyone who sits on this couch, we often call ourselves a family, but you are the real TODAY show family. You are why I have ventured into dangerous places and interviewed dictators and jumped off of planes and off of bridges, and climbed mountains and landed in the South Pole, and convinced the Dalai Lama to come live in our studio. I have loved you, and I have wanted to give you the world. And I still do. They’re giving me some fancy new titles which essentially means that I’m going to get tickets to every big story we want to cover with a terrific team of my choosing. We’re going to go all over the world and all over this country at a time where this country and this world needs clarity.”

Here’s some of our favorite pieces by Ann Curry: Ann Curry helps American in Japan reunite with family after tsumani, Ann Curry as Cinderella, Ann Curry discovers her Japanese roots and Ann Curry does comedy.

Ann Curry leaves Today Show