On Thursday, the “Today” show went to great lengths to emphasize to viewers that the NBC morning news show is “a family,” as its on-air talent welcomed co-host Savannah Guthrie back for a visit after she has been in Arizona the past month, dealing with the agonizing search for her missing 84-year-old mother.
But sources for a bombshell Daily Mail report dispute the idea that people at the show are all that close and caring, or that they are eager to see Guthrie return, as she promised she would.
In fact, the “cruel truth” is that “many” staffers at the show hope Guthrie doesn’t find her way back to “Today,” the Daily Mail reported, citing interviews with multiple sources.
“It’s a viper’s nest. Even if you’re suffering,” one source said.
Savannah Guthrie with an image of her mother Nancy Guthrie outside her home. (Getty Images)
Different people had different reason for hoping that Guthrie’s absence remains permanent, according to the Daily Mail. While all the sources interviewed said they hoped for the safe return of Nancy Guthrie, who was reported missing from her Tucson home on Feb. 1, they also presented a behind-the-scene portrait of a TV staff overrun by self-interests.
‘You think ‘The Morning Show’ is bad? That’s nothing,” one source said referring to the behind-the-scenes backstabbing and power struggles dramatized in the Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon Apple TV drama. This source said that Guthrie’s on-air colleagues see themselves getting more screen time if she stays away. “These people will steal your chair while you’re still sitting in it,” the source said.
Another person said that production staffers felt more relaxed in Guthrie’s absence, due to her star power and high standards. “They prefer her friendlier, fluffier replacement, Hoda Kotb,” the source said.
Four days before Guthrie’s brief visit to the studio, NBC bosses held a production meeting, with “ambitious up-and-comers” hoping it would provide some answers about their future, the Daily Mail reported. They were frustrated when the bosses announced Guthrie would be coming back, but at an unknown date. The bosses also asked everyone to keep Guthrie and her family in their thoughts.
Savannah Guthrie gets a kiss form Hoda Kotb during a visit to the Today show at Rockefeller Plaza on Thursday, March 5, 2026, in New York. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)
During Guthrie’s visit to Studio 1A, where she was “embraced by our ‘Today’ show family,” as Craig Melvin said, she let her colleagues know, “I’m still standing and I still have hope and I’m still me.” She also said, “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.”
Guthrie’s visit came on Day 33 in the search for her mother. The Pima County Sheriff’s Department and the FBI believe that Nancy Guthrie was taken from her home against her will in the early morning hours of Feb. 1, after being dropped off at her home the night before by family.
Despite a massive search, wall-to-wall coverage and President Donald Trump asking for the grandmother’s safe return, she is still missing, with authorities and her family acknowledging that they don’t know if she is still alive. Authorities also have not identified suspects or reasons for her abduction.
During Guthrie’s visit, Dylan Dreyer, the “Today” show meteorologist and “3rd Hour of Today” co-host, led the other anchors and crew in “a moving prayer” for the safe return of Nancy Guthrie.
“You know, it felt like the right moment for all of us,” Dreyer said on the show. “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? … And I think, Savannah felt our love. As a family, we gave that love to her. It was our gift to her.”
