{"id":568039,"date":"2026-04-06T15:11:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T15:11:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/568039\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T15:11:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T15:11:08","slug":"savannah-guthrie-returns-to-the-today-show-after-mothers-disappearance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/568039\/","title":{"rendered":"Savannah Guthrie returns to the ‘Today’ show after mother’s disappearance"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Savannah Guthrie<\/a> was back and almost all business at NBC\u2019s \u201cToday\u201d show anchor desk on Monday, marking a return for the first time in more than two months since her mother\u2019s disappearance. \u201cHere we go, ready or not,\u201d Guthrie said as the show opened. \u201cLet\u2019s do the news.\u201d<\/p>\n

After running through a series of news headlines, Guthrie said that \u201cwe are so glad that you started our week with us and it\u2019s good to be home.\u201d Her co-host, Craig Melvin said that \u201cit\u2019s good to have you back at home.\u201d<\/p>\n

She greeted longtime co-worker Al Roker with \u201cGood morning, Sunshine,\u201d when he noted that it was good to see her on the set. At the end of the first 25-minute portion of the show, she offered Melvin a high-five.<\/p>\n

Emotions got the better of her before the last half hour, when she joined her colleagues in front of fans gathered at the show\u2019s Rockefeller Center studio. She fought back tears when one fan was seen with a \u201cWelcome home Savannah\u201d shirt, and clutched colleague Jenna Bush Hager\u2019s arm and thanked people for their support.<\/p>\n

Guthrie says it\u2019s hard to go forward not knowing what happened<\/p>\n

Guthrie, one of morning television\u2019s most recognizable faces, has been a \u201cToday\u201d host since 2012. She has acknowledged that she\u2019s a changed person and that it\u2019s hard to go forward<\/a> not knowing what happened to Nancy Guthrie, who authorities believe was taken against her will from her Arizona home.<\/p>\n

Despite an intense search<\/a> involving thousands of federal and local officers and volunteers, there has been no sign of the 84-year-old mother of three since she was reported missing Feb. 1.<\/p>\n

The \u201cToday\u201d show has followed the story closely for the past two months, but it wasn\u2019t mentioned during the first hour of her return on Monday. Bringing things back to normal was clearly intentional: Her return wasn\u2019t referenced during interviews with NBC\u2019s Gabe Gutierrez at the White House and military analyst Steve Warren on the show\u2019s set.<\/p>\n

Hoda Kotb, the former anchor who had filled in for Guthrie for much of the past two months and interviewed her former colleague, wasn\u2019t on set Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday\u201d has seen a ratings boost over the past two months and has even eclipsed ABC\u2019s \u201cGood Morning America\u201d as the leader in the morning show ratings. The shows aren\u2019t the profit generators they once were for the networks, but the rivalry is still intense.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday\u201d averaged 3.1 million viewers for the first three months of the year, up nearly 9% in an era most broadcast programs lose viewers. It\u2019s hard to tell how much the Guthrie story had to do with that: NBC also aired the Super Bowl and the Winter Olympics in February, and both events tend to help a morning show\u2019s ratings.<\/p>\n

\u201cGood Morning America\u201d averaged 2.93 million viewers, up 2% over 2025 while \u201cCBS Mornings\u201d plunged 17% to 1.76 million, according to the Nielsen company.<\/p>\n

As part of a video message<\/a> released by her New York church on Easter Sunday, Guthrie spoke about feeling \u201cmoments of deep disappointment with God, the feeling of utter abandonment.\u201d But she said the resurrection is not fully celebrated \u201cif we do not acknowledge the feelings of loss, pain, and yes, death.\u201d<\/p>\n

In announcing her return to NBC\u2019s flagship morning show, Guthrie said she was uncertain whether she\u2019ll feel like she still belongs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to imagine doing it because it\u2019s such a place of joy and lightness,\u201d she said just over a week ago on \u201cToday\u201d during her first interview<\/a> since the disappearance. \u201cI can\u2019t come back and try to be something that I\u2019m not. But I can\u2019t not come back because it\u2019s my family.\u201d<\/p>\n

She didn\u2019t anticipate faking her way through the show, which is normally light-hearted with a mix of serious, breaking news.<\/p>\n

Guthrie\u2019s mom had made occasional visits to show\u2019s set<\/p>\n

There had been a great deal of speculation about whether she would return. <\/p>\n

\u201cI want to smile, and when I do it will be real,\u201d she told Hoda Kotb, who came back to \u201cToday\u201d to fill in while Guthrie focused on the search. \u201cBeing there is joyful, and when it\u2019s not I\u2019ll say so.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nancy Guthrie made occasional appearances on \u201cToday\u201d over the years, once taking part in a cooking demonstration and surprising her daughter on the set. When Savannah Guthrie returned to her hometown of Tucson in 2025 for a segment recorded for the show, the two visited one of their favorite restaurants and talked about their love of Arizona. <\/p>\n

The Guthrie family has offered a $1 million reward for information leading to the recovery of their mother. <\/p>\n

Authorities believe Nancy Guthrie was kidnapped, abducted or otherwise taken<\/a> against her will after finding blood near the doorstep of her home in the foothills outside Tucson. The FBI later released surveillance videos<\/a> showing a masked man on the porch that night. Volunteers and search teams scoured the nearby desert terrain<\/a> filled with cactuses, bushes and boulders in the first weeks after she vanished.<\/p>\n

But attention has faded from an investigation that was declared to be a top priority for the FBI and local authorities. Investigators have not released new evidence in weeks and say the number of tips has slowed. The FBI and the Pima County Sheriff\u2019s Department both said late last week that they had no updates.<\/p>\n

Early on, some media outlets reported receiving ransom messages tied to the case. Guthrie said she and her siblings responded to two that they believed were real and offered to pay.<\/p>\n

Guthrie said her celebrity status might be the reason her mother was taken, but said that possibility was \u201ctoo much to bear.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Associated Press correspondents John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, and Sarah Brumfield in Washington contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Savannah Guthrie was back and almost all business at NBC\u2019s \u201cToday\u201d show anchor desk…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":568040,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[1250,1017,3830,1251,88,143310,793,64883,108833,209536,2005,1999,66501,250851,1505,5052,795],"class_list":{"0":"post-568039","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-al-roker","9":"tag-arizona","10":"tag-az-state-wire","11":"tag-craig-melvin","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-gabe-gutierrez","14":"tag-general-news","15":"tag-hoda-kotb","16":"tag-jenna-hager","17":"tag-nancy-guthrie","18":"tag-new-york","19":"tag-new-york-city","20":"tag-savannah-guthrie","21":"tag-steve-warren","22":"tag-television","23":"tag-tucson","24":"tag-u-s-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=568039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/568040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=568039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=568039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=568039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}