On Friday, the “Today” show shared some new details from Savannah Guthrie’s Thursday studio visit, where the host told the present crew, “I have every intention of coming back.”
“I wanted you to know that I’m still standing and I still have hope and I’m still me. I don’t know what version of me that will be, but it will be,” Guthrie was quoted saying, as “Today” shared photos of her emotional visit to Studio 1A. The host, who has been absent from the NBC daytime series for over a month, additionally informed her colleagues, “I have every intention of coming back. I don’t know how to come back, but I don’t know how not to. You’re my family, and I would like to try.”
After her remarks, “Today” show meteorologist Dylan Dreyer led the entire crew in a shared prayer for Savannah and her mother Nancy Guthrie, who went missing from her Tucson-area home on Feb. 1. “It felt like the right moment for all of us. We all feel so helpless during this situation. When I feel helpless, I pray,” Dreyer explained. “We talk about how the ‘Today’ show is a family, and here we were, each of us, praying individually. Why not hold hands and send up one big prayer to God? Let’s ask for a miracle.”
Guthrie has been on a leave of absence from the “Today” show ever since her mother’s disappearance in early February. During that time, former “Today” show host Hoda Kotb has stepped in to fill her role for her. Guthrie, meanwhile, has stayed mostly out of the public eye while law enforcement officers have searched for her mother, releasing only occasional video messages on social media both thanking her supporters and pleading directly with her mother’s unknown captors.
“Her grace is second to none under pressure,” co-host Carson Daly said of reuniting with Guthrie yesterday. “I just can’t say enough incredible things about what an amazing spirit she is.”
“I think people watch this show and they think, ‘Oh, these are people that have to like each other for a few hours, and they call themselves a TV family,’” he further noted. “But we do life together, and there is something very special about this group, and yesterday was, I think, one of the most special days not just in our lives professionally but personally.”
“She wants to come back. The timeline [is] unknown, but that was good news, too,” Daly added. NBC also independently reaffirmed the host’s intention to come back to the “Today” show at some point. Her exact return date is unclear right now, though, and will likely stay that way while her mother remains missing.
“Savannah Guthrie stopped by the studio this morning to be with and thank her ‘Today’ colleagues,” an NBC spokesperson said in a statement Thursday. “While she plans to return to the show on air, she remains focused right now supporting her family and working to help bring Nancy home.”
Nancy Guthrie is believed to have been abducted from her home in the early morning hours of Feb. 1. The Guthrie family is currently offering a $1 million reward for any information that leads to her discovery and return. Hundreds of FBI and Arizona officials, meanwhile, continue to investigate her suspected abduction.
