Joel Schiffman and Henry Hager weren't the only surprise guests on Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager's first-ever live edition of TODAY with Hoda & Jenna!
The Thursday morning show also featured DJ Marjorie Gubelmann, better known as "Mad Marj." The 50-year-old mom has appeared on TODAY before to talk about her successful career as a DJ, but this time she was part of the show, emceeing Hoda and Jenna's first appearance before a live studio audience.
She'll be performing on the show all month long, so get prepared to see her every Thursday and Friday morning when the TODAY co-anchors go before the live audience!
In January 2019, Gubelmann stopped by TODAY to talk with Craig Melvin and Dylan Dreyer about her unconventional path from CEO and entrepreneur to music DJ. While she'd had some experience working as a DJ in college, she spent most of her career founding and operating a candle-making company. But in her early 40s, she realized the work no longer satisfied her, and she jumped at an opportunity to DJ again at a friend's birthday party.
"Fifteen minutes turned into three hours, and I literally had the time of my life," she told TODAY in 2019. "I came home and all the circuit breakers in my body had sort of turned on. I felt alive. It was at that moment I found something that I absolutely love to do."
To brush up on her skills, Gubelmann went to Scratch DJ Academy, a school where she could get familiar with music again after spending decades away from the turntables.
"I didn't want to be a fraud," said Gubelmann, who noted that most of her classmates were around 19 years old. "It had been 30 years since I'd first DJ'ed in a radio station, and obviously the technology had changed, and I wanted to understand everything so if I was really going to take a crack at this I would know how to do it properly."
In addition to her time on TODAY, Gubelmann has worked with celebrities like Kim Kardashian, Ed Sheeran and Beyoncé. Her shows have taken her all over the world, and she's been present at the kinds of parties others only dream of attending.
"For me, when I'm DJing and if there's someone obviously very well-known at the party, it just gives me more confidence," Gubelmann said. "All of my lights are on. I'm doing my best job because I'm happy and I'm doing what I love. ... I found what made me feel like a teenager again."