Savannah Guthrie is officially back on the “Today” show two months after her mom, Nancy Guthrie, was reported missing.
The beloved journalist returned to Rockefeller Plaza’s Studio 1A on Monday morning, where she sat at her usual spot beside Craig Melvin.
After recapping the upcoming news, Savannah told viewers, “Good morning, welcome to ‘Today’ on this morning. We are so glad you started the week with us and it is good to be home.”
Melvin looked at her with a smile, replying, “It’s good to have you back at home.”
“Well, ready or not, here we go! Let’s do the news,” she said cheerily.
Savannah wore a bright yellow dress, which Melvin matched with a yellow tie, which is a color that the team has adopted as a symbol of hope, remembrance and support for the safe return of a loved one.
Savannah previously sat down for a two-part “Today” show interview with Kotb last month.
It marked her first official interview since Nancy was reported missing from her Arizona home on Feb. 1 and came after Savannah visited the “Today” set to thank her colleagues for their support amid her mom’s disappearance on March 5.
During the two-part segment, Savannah revealed how she first learned of her mom’s disappearance and shared surprising new clues connected to Nancy’s suspected abduction.
“My sister called me, and I said, ‘Is everything OK?’ And she said, ‘No.’ She said, ‘Mom’s missing,’” Savannah recalled. “And I said, ‘What? What are you talking about?’ She said, ‘She’s gone.’”
Elsewhere during the first part of her emotional interview, the grieving broadcaster revealed that the back doors of her mom’s Tucson home were “propped open,” which was not previously known.
“So we were saying, ‘This is not OK,’” Savannah told Kotb before detailing how her beloved mom was likely taken “in the dead of night in her pajamas, with no shoes, without her medicine.”
While Savannah addressed the various ransom notes she and her siblings received regarding Nancy’s disappearance, she shared her belief that only two of them were legitimate.
“There are a lot of different notes that came, and I think most of them, is my understanding, are not real,” she explained. “I didn’t see them, but you know, a person that would send a fake ransom note really has to look deeply at themselves.”
She added, “But I believe the two notes that we received that we responded to, I tend to believe those are real.”
After calling the speculation that her own family was somehow involved in Nancy’s suspected abduction both “cruel” and “unbearable,” Savannah touched upon how her two kids have handled their grandmother’s disappearance.
Savannah also sobbed while acknowledging the possibility she was at fault for her beloved mom’s kidnapping.
“That it’s because of me, and I just want to say, I’m so sorry, mommy,” she said through tears.
“I’m so sorry,” Savannah continued. “I’m sorry to my sister [Annie Guthrie] and my brother [Cameron Guthrie], and my kids and my nephew and Tommy, my brother-in-law, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry if it’s me, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Although the “Today” co-host stopped short of saying her mother was no longer with us, she did share a divine experience she had with God early on in the search for Nancy.
“I can handle anything, God, I can handle anything,” she recalled thinking. “I just can’t handle not knowing. We can’t handle not knowing. I have to know.”
Savannah continued, “And I heard a voice, and it said, ‘You do know where she is. She’s with Me. She’s with Me.’ So whether she’s on this Earth still or whether she’s in Heaven, I know where she is. I know who she’s with, but we need to know.”
