Savannah Guthrie, 54, used the past tense to reference her mother Thursday morning on the Today show, seven months after Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance.
Guthrie’s comment came after an announcement that the Today hosts will film a series of live episodes in Ireland in October, prompting Guthrie, a co-host, to discuss her mother’s heritage.
“My mother’s family—my mother was Irish, [as was] her grandmother,” she said. “They were from Galway.”
Nancy Guthrie disappeared from her home in Tucson, Arizona, on Feb. 1 of this year. Video footage showed a masked intruder entering her house. In August, the Pima County Sheriff’s Department shared two ransom notes related to the abduction in an effort to identify the writer. The notes demanded $4 million in bitcoin by February 5, which would increase to $6 million if the deadline passed.
Since her mother’s disappearance, Guthrie has posted several videos on Instagram addressing the kidnappers and asking the public for help. She took two months off from Today before returning to her co-hosting duties on April 6.
No suspects have been identified, and Guthrie has admitted that Nancy may no longer be alive.
“There is an ache that cannot be softened,” Guthrie said in an August 1 Instagram video. “And there is a determination in us that cannot be quenched—to find out what happened to her, so that we can give her the dignity of a proper goodbye—a celebration of her remarkable life that she so deserves.”
Guthrie and her co-hosts, including Sheinelle Jones and Jenna Bush Hager, wore green in honor of their upcoming Irish expedition. According to Hager, Guthrie’s 2025 interview with Pierce Brosnan inspired the trip; Guthrie said she was “dying to go to Ireland,” and that she’d never been before.
“Was I flirting with Pierce, or was I trying to go to Ireland?” Guthrie quipped Thursday before announcing, “Guys, this October, all of us, representing every hour of Today will bring you the show live from Ireland, the Emerald Isle.”
Guthrie’s co-anchors then surprised her with a special message from Brosnan.
“Hello to one and all,” he said in a pre-recorded video. “I love the country. Give it a big hug and a kiss from me, and to you once more, Savannah, much love.”
