Savannah Guthrie reflected on her family roots during Thursday morning’s broadcast of the “Today” show, making a rare reference to her mother, Nancy Guthrie, seven months after her disappearance.
“My mother’s family — my mother was Irish, [as was] her grandmother,” the co-host shared with viewers, adding that her relatives “were from Galway.”
The NBC anchor’s personal remark came as the “Today” team revealed plans to take the morning show overseas for a run of live episodes filmed in Ireland.
Guthrie, 54, marked the announcement in festive fashion, joining Sheinelle Jones, Jenna Bush Hager and the rest of the morning crew in wearing green on set.
“I love that we’re all going,” Savannah said enthusiastically. “I’ve never been to Ireland.”
The journalist, notably, spoke about her parent in the past tense — and she has previously acknowledged that Nancy may be dead after the 84-year-old’s February abduction from her Arizona home.
Weeks into the search for Nancy, Savannah posted an Instagram plea to her captors and said, “We … know that she may be lost.”
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Savannah added, “She may already be gone. She may have already gone home to the Lord that she loves and is dancing in Heaven with her mom and her dad and with her beloved brother Pierce and with our daddy, [Charles Guthrie].
“And if this is what is to be, then we will accept it, but we need to know where she is,” she continued on behalf of herself and siblings Camron Guthrie and Annie Guthrie. “We need her to come home.”
The investigation remains ongoing.
Savannah shared her most recent message to Nancy’s kidnappers via social media at the six-month mark in August.
“Every day, we wake up and try to be strong and go on — because that’s what our joyful and resilient Mom taught us to do,” she told her Instagram followers last month. “But make no mistake — our hearts are in ruins.”
Savannah went on to write, “We spend every waking moment thinking of her, longing for her, looking for her. There is a hole inside us that can never be filled. There is an ache that cannot be softened.
“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.”
This is a developing story…