Savannah Guthrie returned to the TODAY show earlier this month on Monday, April 6. This came two months after her mother Nancy Guthrie, 84, was kidnapped from her home in Tucson, Arizona. Sadly, Nancy remains missing, and the search for her continues.
On Wednesday morning, Savannah shocked TODAY viewers by disappearing mid-show, never to return. This led to online speculation that she may have gotten an update about her mom that required her immediate attention.
Savannah Disappears From TODAY Mid-Show
Part-way through the show, Savannah, 54, was seen sitting with the Oscar-winning actress Anne Hathaway, who is currently promoting her new movie Mother Mary.
Savannah seemed poised to interview Anne when she threw the show to a commercial break. When the TODAY returned, however, Savannah was inexplicably gone. Indeed, Hoda Kotb took her place to interview Anne instead.
Check out the moment for yourself in the video below.
Social Media Users Respond
TODAY never addressed her absence. Social media users, however, began to speculate immediately about what could have happened.
“Watching The Today Show and Savannah was set to interview Anne Hathaway before commercial break. Went to commercial and came back and Hoda was in. I hope everything is ok bc that was odd,” one social media user commented. “I watch everyday and they normally never do that.”
Another social media user wrote that it seemed like Savannah had “just been like whisked away and like disappeared.”
Other social media users pointed out that Savannah returned for the very end of the show. However, this only made viewers scratch their heads even more.
“Definitely strange, and odd to return for the last minute, unless just trying to not let on to anyone,” one person commented on social media. Yet another user wrote, “That’s strange! Maybe she got a call and was going to leave after the last set?”
Savannah made her return to TODAY earlier this month. Afterwards, an NBC source told Daily Mail that producers have worked out a key phrase with Savannah that they will use with her if she needs to leave to receive an update on her mother. According to this insider, Savannah would be told that she’s “needed off set” if an update comes in.
“We would pull her immediately, mid-segment if we had to,” the source explained. “She knows if one of the producers tells her she’s ‘needed off set’ that there’s a development. She would understand that there was news about her mom and we’d take her into an office and tell her, at the same time that another anchor would report it as a breaking story.”
Nancy’s Kidnapping
Nancy Guthrie was last seen on the night of Saturday, January 31. That evening, she had dinner with her daughter Annie and son-in-law Tommaso Cioni. They dropped her off at home afterwards at around 9:45pm, and she tragically hasn’t been seen since.
A masked intruder was captured on Nancy’s doorbell ring camera in the early hours of February 1. He managed to cover the camera with some plants before moving forward with the kidnapping.
It has since been revealed that the masked man had been seen in the doorbell ring camera prior to the night Nancy was taken. This indicates that he may have been casing out her home.
We can’t imagine the stress and devastation that Savannah has been feeling over the past few months. Returning to the TODAY show could not have been easy for her.
Please join us in saying a prayer for the return of Nancy Guthrie.