Savannah Guthrie says she cries “every morning” as she continues to host NBC’s Today show despite the disappearance of her mother.
Savannahappeared on Monday as a guest co-host on Today with Jenna & Sheinelle, the fourth hour of Today, filling in for Sheinelle Jones alongside Jenna Bush Hager, and the pair discussed her return to TV amid the continuing search for her mother, Nancy Guthrie, who was reported missing in Arizona four months ago.
“First of all, I can’t really even look at you every day without crying. You’re my best friend. You know, it’s really hard to come back. I’ve been trying so hard to hold it together, and I promise I will,” she told Bush Hager through tears.
“When I see you in the morning, I know that you see me no matter what is going on. Sometimes that’s almost too much because I feel like to do the job I gotta keep it together.”
“But I’m happy to be back and it’s like two hours of my day that – it’s not that I’m not thinking about it, because I am – but it’s something to do,” she added. “It brings me a lot of joy to be with everybody. But no, it’s not easy.”
Nancy, 84, disappeared from her home in Catalina Foothills outside Tucson, Arizona, on 1 February. She was reported missing after failing to arrive at a friend’s home to watch a livestream of a church service.
Drops of her blood were found at the home as well as her phone and the heart medication she needed to take daily.
Her disappearance triggered an ongoing search. In February, the FBI released images of a masked and armed person outside Nancy’s home the night she went missing.
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While authorities have said they believe Nancy was taken against her will, they have not shared a motive or identified a suspect so far. There is no evidence pointing to whether she is still alive.
There has been no update in the case for weeks now, despite police and Nancy’s family offering a reward of more than $1.2m for information.
Savannah, 54, returned to Today in April after a two-month leave of absence to help search for her mother alongside her siblings.
On Monday’s episode, she said that returning to work had provided “a little respite” during the day and she believed her mother would want her to continue working.
“I don’t think if I had any other kind of job I would have even tried to come back,” she said. “I just felt like, ‘What else should I do?’ And my mom would’ve said the same, ‘Just keep going, just keep going.’ And it is hard when you’re with your best friend to not be real.”
She had been afraid to co-host with Bush Hager earlier because she “couldn’t look at her in this setting where we just talk about life and tell the truth about life and not tell the truth about my life”, Savannah said.
“I know maybe people wonder, ‘What’s going on? How is she able to do that job? Is she not thinking about it? Did she forget?’ No, never. Never,” she said about her mother’s disappearance.
“It’s always with me. I cry every morning on the way to work and I cry every morning on the way home and I’m grateful to have good friends and to be able to come to such a beautiful, joyous and supportive place.”
“Like so many people out there, you can hold all of these things together,” she added. “I try to tell my kids that too. We can hold our sadness and we can hold our joy. And if you don’t believe it, just watch me.”
The conversation also turned to faith, which Savannah described as a source of support during the ongoing ordeal.
Referring to a sermon she had recently read, she said: “There’s a time in life when just walking and not growing faint is about as good as it can get and that’s what I feel like I’m doing.”
She ended the interview with another public appeal for information about her mother’s disappearance, saying: “We still need everybody’s prayers. We wish someone would call and say what they know.”
