Before they started dating, Tamron Hall's future husband had one cheesy (but effective) pickup line on repeat.

Over the course of a year, Hall and music executive Steven Greener, who knew one another in that "oh, hey, it's you" sort of way, would have random run-ins at parties, on planes and, once, poolside in Los Angeles. Each time, Greener would shoulder up to the veteran TV anchor and ask, "What are the odds?"

That same question is probably looping through the minds of every network executive, station manager and talent scout who counted Hall out after her abrupt, possibly career-ending exit from NBC three years ago.

What are the odds? Pretty good, it turns out.

In the handful of years since her headline-making departure, Hall has married, had a baby and debuted a hit show in a notoriously tough time slot.

Since its debut in September 2019, the veteran journalist's nationally syndicated daytime talker, "The Tamron Hall Show," has gobbled up ratings and big-name gets. A month after its Season 2 premiere, Disney announced in October that Hall would be renewed, marking the first time a new daytime talk series secured a third-year run since "The Steve Harvey" show did it six years ago.

Don't call it a comeback. Hall has been betting on herself — and winning.

"I don't want this platform to be seen as the 'Ha-ha, look, they got it wrong.' That's not what I want," Hall said of her namesake show and its out-the-gate success. The better story is what she got right.

In 2017, Hall left NBC after she lost her dream job as the first Black woman to co-host an hour of "Today" in its then 62-year history. The network decided to take a right turn with Megyn Kelly as host of the third hour and, consequently, Hall's long-held roles on both the behemoth morning show and cable news outlet MSNBC would be significantly diminished. Hall walked.

"It was very scary at the time," said Jennifer Llamas, Hall's good friend and former executive producer at "MSNBC Live With Tamron Hall." Llamas was on the phone with Hall as the broadcaster walked out the doors of 30 Rockefeller Plaza for the final time. "That was such a big moment," Llamas added. "While she believed in herself, she didn't know what was coming."

Hall was 47, and jobless for the first time since she was 14. Unsurprisingly, the news junkie was left wondering whether it was all over, her three decades in the business reduced to bullet points on a dusty résumé. The calls that were coming in mentioned words she hadn't heard in years: "sidekick" and "fill-in." This couldn't be it.

"I knew my value, and I knew that that wasn't matching my value," said Hall, who made a promise to herself in those moments — after some prerequisite pity-partying. She wouldn't let anyone else choose her ending. She'd never again be put in the position where she was pleading her case, asking for "permission to stay."

"At some point, you learn that this is all so subjective. Sometimes the list of things you can bring in simply don't matter if that's not what the other person is interested in. And I was okay with that — by Day 3," Hall joked.

Soon came more beginnings, and endings. She landed a talk show development deal with Harvey Weinstein's company. Then the #MeToo movement happened. But again, Hall tucked and rolled. She signed with Disney, and her show — a mix of celebrity, confessionals, hard news, sit-downs and even silliness — premiered in the fall of last year. Six months later, a global pandemic shut down production. The show recalibrated again and came back from Hall's kitchen in Harlem in late March with two laptops and a baby monitor to keep track of her 1-year-old son, Moses.

The secret sauce to her success? "I channeled my inner Liam Neeson," Hall explained. "I have a particular set of skills."

For a few years, you could flip through the channels and catch Hall lightly roasting a politician on MSNBC, cooking on a pretaped "Today" segment and investigating a murder on "Deadline: Crime With Tamron Hall." Hall knew she still had a place in the industry, especially if her following was to be believed.

There was the "lovely little old white lady" in Three Rivers, Mich., who rolled up to Hall during a blizzard to ask the journalist what she was doing next. In New York, Hall would run into Black women on the streets of Manhattan who'd shout, "Girl, you got to go get it. You got to go show them!" In the airport in Arkansas, she learned to listen for a familiar name: "Tamra! Tamra! I can't wait to see you back on." They all knew her from somewhere, if not the same place. And they all wanted her back.

"Let me pull in all of these different and real sides of me — the reporter for many years in Chicago, the reporter for many years in Dallas, the anchor — you know, all of that, and make it one show," Hall said.

That was it. That was the pitch. And the first question out of every executive's mouth? Why you? Much more "famous" people have crashed and burned under the bright lights of the daytime landscape. Call them one- (or two-) season wonders. Queen Latifah, Wayne Brady, Tony Danza, Harry Connick Jr., Meredith Vieira, Megyn Kelly — the list goes on. How was Hall going to do any better?

"I said, 'I don't know if I can, but here's my theory of why or how I can,'" Hall recalled. She started by pulling together the different parts of her own personal and professional journey, in hopes of gathering the viewers who'd watched her on channels scattered across the TV spectrum.

Hall's show — and its virality — is proof that her many sides and many fans could come together.

There was the hard-hitting journalist hat she put on to interview Andrew Gillum, the Florida politician who, after narrowly missing the opportunity to become the state's governor, was photographed naked and intoxicated in a Miami hotel room. When she welcomed reality star Tamar Braxton to her studio in October, months after it had been reported that the reality star attempted suicide, Hall began with: "How are you?" For the intro to the show's "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" reunion segment, Hall dressed in a neon yellow '90s get-up and rapped the famous theme song.

"I feel more comfortable than ever. I feel more like myself. I feel, oddly enough, liberated," she said. "I looked at the tree and I look at the branches and there are many and I am not being untrue to any part of myself."

That includes the newly minted businesswoman who's now responsible for an entire staff and crew. Hall approaches the show like running a small business, and there have been bumps in the road. This summer, just as Season 1 wrapped, there were reports that Hall had fired and not paid 20 staffers in the midst of the pandemic. Not true, she said. Hall and Carter made changes to the show staff ahead of Season 2, but no one was left hanging, and everyone was paid through their original contract plus a 20-day extension. Those rumors got to her.

"We know every company that's run by a man, that's run by a white man, would not be questioned for trying to make the company better. That's what I was stunned by," Hall said. Too often, women are not expected to be business-minded and strategic, she added, and fall into the "likability trap." "I just thought, Wow, are we still there? We're still at a point where a woman can't say, 'Let's do better'?"

More recently, BuzzFeed published an article about crew members' concerns that the show was becoming a coronavirus hotspot as several staffers tested positive. Unnamed sources placed the blame on Hall and questioned the fact that those closest to her were being tested more frequently than others. Hall called the report heartbreaking, but maintained that the show's COVID-19 protocols were in line with Disney's corporate standards.

"When you have your name on the show, you are responsible. My name matters. It matters if it's associated with something I don't have control over or not," Hall said.