For Savannah Guthrie, the journey from a young, slightly bewildered NBC correspondent standing outside Jenna Bush Hager’s Texas wedding in 2008 to the anchor chair of the world’s most-watched morning show has been nothing short of extraordinary. Even now, nearly thirteen years into her Today tenure, she admits she still has “pinch me” moments — the kind that awaken the kid from Tucson who once idolized Katie Couric and never imagined she’d someday inherit the same seat.
Today, at 53, Guthrie balances the role of journalist, author, mother, friend, and reluctant TV icon with a mix of humility and awe. In a sprawling conversation with Us Weekly, she opens up about the legacy she’s building, the pressures she carries, the friendships that sustain her, and the deep personal transition that came with Hoda Kotb’s departure from Today earlier this year.
Savannah Guthrie’s path to the anchor desk wasn’t linear. She’s the first to say she wasn’t an obvious prodigy — “a terrible high school student,” as she puts it, who barely attended class and graduated with the most average grades. By her own account, nothing about her early years hinted she was “going places.”
But journalism did what journalism often does: it found her. After law school, reporting assignments snowballed into national coverage, then political reporting, then that fated trip to Texas, which would quietly mark the beginning of her connection to Jenna Bush Hager — though neither of them could foresee it.
Now, Guthrie says she feels a responsibility every morning to honor the legacy of pioneers like Barbara Walters, Jane Pauley, and Ann Curry. Their footsteps are the foundation she stands on. “I feel like I’m a custodian of something that matters,” she reflects. “Today is joyful, important, endlessly interesting — and I still can’t believe I get to be part of it.”
Though she radiates poise on-screen, Guthrie says big interviews still rattle her. High-stakes moments — like her recent interview with Bill Gates — send her into what her husband jokingly calls “lockdown mode,” sliding food under the door while she pores over pages of research.
Confrontation, she admits, has never been natural for her. Yet as a journalist, she finds herself in these confrontational spaces more often than one might guess. “I don’t like it at all,” she says. “But in that moment, the job is more important. I’m supposed to get the answer.”
Off-camera, Savannah is wife to consultant Michael Feldman and mother to two young children, Vale and Charley. Motherhood is the part of her life she approaches with both fierce devotion and deep vulnerability.
Balancing work and parenting? She laughs. Some days feel manageable; others are chaos. Mom guilt? Constant. But she tries to reframe it — not as failure, but as intention. “Instead of shaming ourselves,” she says, “it’s caring. Asking, ‘How can I be better? How can I raise kind, good humans?’”
Faith also anchors her approach to parenting. Though she comes from a multifaith home and avoids imposing religion on her kids, she wants them to feel the comfort that belief has given her. “You can’t protect your babies forever,” she says softly. “But God can. I want them to know that.”
One of the most emotional chapters of Guthrie’s Today career came with Hoda Kotb’s departure. The two women were more than colleagues — they were partners, confidantes, cheerleaders.
Guthrie remembers the exact moment Hoda told her the news. She was at an airport before an overseas trip. The phone rang. She instantly knew something was wrong. “Hoda wants to call me, and she knows I’m at the airport. This can’t be good.”
What came next broke her heart — and filled her with admiration.
Hoda was ready to leap into the unknown.
“She said, ‘I turned 60. I could keep doing this for ten more years with one hand tied behind my back. But I want to take a risk.’” Savannah says she’s thrilled for her friend, proud of her boldness, and certain that Craig Melvin stepping in is exactly right. But missing Hoda? Oh, she does. They all do.
Guthrie’s new children’s book, Mostly What God Does Is Love You, is a gentle companion to her bestselling 2024 essays. She writes for tired moms, curious kids, and anyone who needs reminding that smallness is not insignificance. Her favorite line? “He is big and you are small — but never too small for Him.”
Writing for children, she says, comes from the same place as reading bedtime stories to her own: tired, tender moments filled with magic.
Savannah has spoken before about becoming a mother later in life — and how she once feared it might never happen. After a difficult divorce at 36, she believed she had “ruined” her chance at the family she’d always wanted.
But life surprised her.
Her advice to women feeling the ticking clock is gentle and honest: hope, but don’t demand. “Waiting and hoping are kind of the same thing,” she says. “Why not hope?”
When asked how she wants to be remembered at Today, Guthrie recoils — half flattered, half amused. “It means I’m old!” she laughs.
But she answers anyway, with humility:
“I hope my legacy is that I took good care of the show while I had my hands on it.”
And in her voice, there’s no doubt — she has.
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