Savannah Guthrie Expresses Emotional Concerns Over Potential Impact of Fame on Family Safety

Savannah Guthrie found herself overcome with emotion as she apologized to her mother, Nancy, expressing her concern that her celebrity status and financial success might have played a role in her mother’s abduction.

During a heartfelt segment on NBC’s Today show, where Savannah typically serves as an anchor, she recounted the moment her brother Camron, a military veteran, first recognized the potential link between their family’s ordeal and her public persona. On February 1, 84-year-old Nancy was kidnapped, and Camron immediately suspected that the crime was connected to Savannah’s fame and fortune.

“My brother, with his military experience, quickly figured out what was happening,” Savannah shared. “He said, ‘I think she’s been kidnapped for ransom.'” Overwhelmed by the possibility, Savannah asked, “Do you think it’s because of me?”

Camron’s response was candid and direct: “Sorry sweetie, yeah, maybe.” Savannah acknowledged that she had already feared that was the case.

‘He said “Sorry sweetie, yeah, maybe.” But I knew that.’ 

Savannah said that she, Camron and their sister Nancy still do not know for sure what triggered Nancy’s February 1 abduction from her $1.4 million home in Tucson, Arizona – before breaking down at the thought that her fame may have encouraged the abductor to strike. 

‘I don’t know that it’s because she’s my mom and somebody thought oh that girl, that lady has money, we could make a quick buck.’ 

‘Too much to bear to think that I brought this to her bedside, that it’s because of me. I just have to say, I’m so sorry, Mommy. I’m so sorry,’ Savannah told Hoda Kotb on NBC Today on Thursday

‘I’m sorry to my sister and my brother and my kids and my nephew and Tommy and my brother-in-law, just, like, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.’

Savannah Guthrie offered distressing new details of the moment she realized her 84-year-old mother Nancy had been abducted in an interview with Hoda Kotb on NBC Today

Nancy Guthrie, seen with Savannah, was taken from her home in Tucson, Arizona in the early hours of February 1 and has been missing ever since

Savannah went on to share how the speculation that her brother-in-law Tommaso Cioni was involved in Nancy’s abduction is ‘unbearable.’

‘It piles pain upon pain. There are no words. There are no words. I don’t understand, I’ll never understand, and no one took better care of my mom than my sister and brother-in-law. No one protected my mom more than my brother. We love her and she is our shining light. She’s our matriarch. She’s all we have.’

There has been no trace of Nancy since her disappearance, with Nest doorbell camera footage released weeks later showing a masked figure in black nitrile gloves with a gun on the doorstep around the time Nancy vanished.

Savannah told Kotb that she had spent the evening with Today co-host Carson Daly and their children in New York City when her sister Annie called to say Nancy was missing. 

Her husband Mike was away on a tennis ‘boys’ trip’ that Savannah had bought him for Christmas.  

 Savannah said: ‘My sister called me and I said “Is everything okay?” and she said “No, mom’s missing.”‘

Savannah and her sister Annie were in a ‘panic,’ she recalled. They initially suspected that Nancy had suffered a medical episode in the night, but quickly realized something more sinister had occurred.

‘Her phone was there and her purse was there and all her things, and it just didn’t make any sense,’ Savannah told Kotb. 

‘I started calling the hospitals and the police were there and talking to her at the same time and it was just chaos, and disbelief.’

Footage showed a masked figure on her doorstep around the time of her abduction

Savannah said that she, Camron and their sister Nancy still do not know for sure what triggered Nancy’s February 1 abduction from her $1.4 million home in Tucson, Arizona

Savannah explained that her mother’s health was too poor for her to have wandered off, with a ‘good day’ for Nancy being one where she could walk to the mailbox at the end of her short driveway.

The star said her family saw the doors to Nancy’s home propped open and began to wonder whether a crew of paramedics had stretchered her away.

But the sight of her phone and purse – as well as blood drops on the doorstep – soon made her realize something far more sinister had come to pass. 

Asked about the doorbell camera footage of her mother’s likely abductor, Savannah said: ‘It’s just absolutely terrifying. And I can’t imagine that is who she saw standing over her bed.

‘I can’t. It’s too much.’

Savannah said she believed two ransom notes sent after Nancy’s abduction were real. She said those were the ones her family responded to via video.

She conceded that others sent were likely fake, saying: ‘A person that would send a fake ransom note has to look deeply at themselves… a family in pain.’ 

Savannah, in a portion of the interview that aired Wednesday, said ‘someone needs to do the right thing’ and come forward with information to help the investigation.

‘We are in agony,’ she told Kotb, sharing how she wakes up in the middle of each night thinking about the pain that Nancy suffered.

‘To think of what she went through. I wake up every night in the middle of the night, every night,’ she said, tears streaming down her face. 

‘In the darkness, I imagine her terror. And it is unthinkable, but those thoughts demand to be thought. And I will not hide my face. But she needs to come home now.’

Savannah Guthrie sat down with Hoda Kotb for her first interview since her mother Nancy was abducted last month

She added that while it is unbearable to think of the terror her mother must have felt, ‘those thoughts demand to be thought. And I will not hide my face. But she needs to come home now.’

Both Savannah and Kotb were crying during the brief portion of the interview aired on Wednesday.

Kotb, Savannah’s former co-host, has returned to Today while her former colleague has been away.

Savannah Guthrie has been a co-host of NBC’s morning show since 2012, and is expected to return to the show next month.