Savannah Guthrie
What are some notable moments from Savannah Guthrie’s career on the Today show?
What happened to Savannah Guthrie’s mother?
Who is Nancy Guthrie?
When is Savannah Guthrie returning to the Today show?
Where was Savannah Guthrie born and raised?
What educational background does Savannah Guthrie have?
What was Savannah Guthrie’s role at NBC before joining the Today show?
Savannah Guthrie is one of a long line of Today show hosts who has—as the program demands—mixed journalistic rigor with downright silliness. Consider that in her role with NBC she has:
- Emptied the contents of her purse for the Today audience on social media
- Revealed that she’s deathly afraid of frogs on live television
- Interviewed such news makers as Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, and the doctor found guilty in Michael Jackson’s death
- Opened Today on the morning of November 29, 2017, with the announcement of the firing of cohost Matt Lauer, saying, “This is a sad morning here at Today and at NBC News.”
In early 2026 Guthrie faced a personal crisis when her 84-year-old mother, Nancy Guthrie, was reportedly abducted from her home in Tucson, Arizona, U.S.
Early life
- Birth date: December 27, 1971
- Birthplace: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
- Education: University of Arizona, bachelor’s degree in journalism, 1993; Georgetown Law School, J.D., 2002
- Current role: Cohost of NBC’s Today show
- Family: Married to Mark Orchard from 2005 to 2009; married to Michael Feldman since 2014, and the couple has two children.
- Quotation: “I love to sleep in, but since I normally wake up between 3 and 4 am for Today, my idea of sleeping in is 6 am, maybe 6:30.”
Savannah Guthrie was born in Australia in 1971, the youngest of Michael and Nancy Guthrie’s three children. The family was in Australia for Michael Guthrie’s job as a mining engineer. When Savannah Guthrie was two, the family moved to Tucson, Arizona, where she grew up.
Michael Guthrie died of a heart attack when Savannah Guthrie was 16, a loss she has described as tearing her “whole world apart.” She later attended college at the University of Arizona, living at home in part because she and her sister didn’t want to leave their mom alone.
Early career
After graduating with a degree in journalism, Guthrie worked at a number of local television stations as a reporter and anchor. She then worked as a freelance journalist at an NBC affiliate in Washington, D.C., covering the terror attacks of September 11 and the anthrax poisonings of 2001.
About this time Guthrie decided to pursue a degree in law at Georgetown Law School, where she graduated in 2002. She practiced law for several years at a Washington, D.C., firm before marrying her two skills to serve as a reporter for Court TV. “It was a gamble to quit this television career and start a new path and go to law school full time, because I wasn’t sure I was done with TV,” Guthrie told Georgetown in a 2012 interview about her career, adding, “Of course, I’m thrilled at how it ended up.”
Joining NBC
In 2007 Guthrie took a job at NBC News. As White House correspondent, Guthrie covered the 2008 presidential campaign and reported on such stories as the death of Osama bin Laden. In 2011 Guthrie joined Today as chief legal correspondent and host of the show’s third hour. In 2012 she became Today cohost, joining Lauer after the firing of Ann Curry.
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During her tenure at Today she has interviewed celebrities and sports stars, but she is recognized as being particularly adept at the political interview, having sat down with Mitt Romney, Barack Obama, Gabby Giffords and Mark Kelly, and Barney Frank. She has also been an anchor of NBC’s coverage of the Olympic Games.
In the wake of Lauer’s dismissal amid charges of sexual misconduct, Guthrie teamed up with Hoda Kotb to anchor Today through January 2025, when Craig Melvin took Kotb’s spot after she retired.
Kidnapping of Nancy Guthrie
In early 2026 Nancy Guthrie was reported missing when she did not show up for church. Police in Pima county, Arizona, went to her home and determined it was a crime scene, stating that it was possible that Nancy Guthrie had been abducted from her home after last being seen about 9:30 pm on January 31, 2026.
Regular Today viewers are familiar with Nancy Guthrie, who has made appearances on the show with her daughter. In a 2022 broadcast celebrating Nancy Guthrie’s 80th birthday, Savannah Guthrie said of her mother, “She’s quick and she’s smart, she’s well-read, she’s curious about everything.”
Savannah Guthrie, who wrote about her faith in her 2024 book Mostly What God Does, asked for prayers, saying in a statement:
Thank you for lifting your prayers with ours for our beloved mom, our dearest Nancy, a woman of deep conviction, a good and faithful servant.
Throughout February 2026, media attention on the Nancy Guthrie case was intense. Savannah Guthrie made repeated appeals on social media for the return of her mother. Despite resources from federal, state, and local law enforcement, the pace of the investigation was agonizingly slow with video of a masked assailant at Nancy Guthrie’s door coming to light 10 days after the abduction. On February 24, Guthrie made another appeal for the return of her mother – dead or alive – saying the family was offering a $1 million reward for information. At the same time, the family donated $500,000 to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
In late March 2026, Guthrie gave her first television interview about her mother’s disappearance, speaking with her former co-anchor Kotb. Through tears, she expressed her remorse that her celebrity could have been the reason for her mother’s abduction. “To think that I brought this to her bedside, that it’s because of me. I’d just say: ‘I’m so sorry, Mommy. I’m so sorry.’ ” Guthrie returned to Today on April 6, about two months after Nancy Guthrie’s kidnapping. Upon her return, she told viewers and co-host Craig Melvin, “It’s good to be home.”
In May 2026, NBC announced that it was producing a primetime gameshow version of Wordle that would be hosted by Guthrie and begin airing in 2027. Production of the show had been delayed by the kidnapping of Nancy Guthrie.
In June 2026, some five months after Nancy Guthrie’s kidnapping, there were news reports that the family had received a note several days after the disappearance saying that Nancy Guthrie had died. When the news was reported as part of the Today broadcast, Savannah Guthrie said she could not comment on the existence of such a note but renewed her plea for information about her mother’s whereabouts, saying: “I wanted to just take the opportunity to ask people, really to beg people, to come forward. ... We are in agony and we cannot be at peace.” In July 2026 the Pima County Sheriff’s Department released two messages it identified as ransom notes, one of which stated that Nancy Guthrie had died soon after her abduction.