Savannah Guthrie Cries Thinking Mom’s Kidnapping Is Her Fault

Savannah Guthrie‘s first TV interview about her mom Nancy’s disappearance is airing in two parts on NBC’s “Today,” with Guthrie tearfully telling her former co-host Hoda Kotb on Thursday that she can’t help but blame herself.

After the initial shock of her mother’s kidnapping — which was reported on Feb. 1 after she missed her usual Sunday church service — Guthrie detailed her realization that the perpetrator could have been motivated by her money. She recalled a phone conversation with her brother, Camron, where she asked him: “Do you think it’s because of me?”

“He said, ‘Well, I’m sorry sweetie, but yeah, maybe.’ But I knew that,” Guthrie continued. “I hope not. I mean, we still don’t know. Honestly, we don’t know anything. So I don’t know that it’s because she’s my mom and somebody thought, ‘Oh, that lady has money, we can make a quick buck.’ I mean, that would make sense, but we don’t know.”

Guthrie said she has come to terms with that “probably” being the case, “which is too much to bear.”

“To think that I brought this to her bedside, that it’s because of me,” Guthrie said as both she and Kotb broke down into tears. “And I just have to say, I’m so sorry, mommy. I am so sorry. I’m sorry to my sister and my brother and my kids and my nephew and Tommy, my brother-in-law. I’m so sorry. If it is me, I’m so sorry.”

“Today” announced on Wednesday that Guthrie would join the morning show for her first TV interview about her mother’s disappearance. Guthrie has been on an extended leave from her “Today” anchor duties amid the ordeal.

“Someone needs to do the right thing. We are in agony. It is unbearable,” Guthrie told Kotb through tears in a clip from the interview that was released early. “And to think of what she went through. I wake up every night in the middle of the night, every night, and in the darkness I imagine her terror. It is unthinkable, but those thoughts demand to be thought. I will not hide my face. She needs to come home now.”

After Nancy was reported missing on Feb. 1, the Pima County Sheriff’s Department called her disappearance a presumed kidnapping after they found concerning evidence at her home in Tucson, Ariz. The FBI joined in the search for Nancy and posted a $100,000 reward for information leading to her recovery. It was later increased to $200,000 and then $1 million on Feb. 24.

On Feb. 10, the FBI recovered footage from a destroyed Ring doorbell camera at Nancy’s home that showed the only person of interest in the case. The video shows “a male, approximately 5’9” – 5’10” tall, with an average build” approaching Nancy’s front door while armed and wearing a hiking backpack. After the footage was released, the FBI said it had received more than 13,000 tips about Nancy, but no arrests had been made.

Guthrie said during her interview with Kotb that she was relieved once the Ring footage was released as it put to rest conspiracy theories that someone in her own family was involved. “I’m glad that people saw what came to our door,” she said, calling the rumors swirling “unbearable.”

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

Guthrie used her social media account in the weeks after her mother’s disappearance to post videos asking for her mother’s kidnappers to return her safely. On “Today,” Guthrie said that she believes the two ransom notes she and her siblings responded to in the social media videos were real.

Asked on “Today” about the current state of the investigation, Guthrie told Kotb: “Well, it’s still going. And people have worked tirelessly, and we see that. But we need answers. We cannot be at peace without knowing. And someone can do the right thing, and it is never too late to do the right thing. And our hearts are focused on that.”

Later on in the interview, Guthrie said that she feels her mother is now with God.

“Early on, I felt and I heard — for one of the very few times in my life — I did hear God speak to me,” she said. “As I said to myself, ‘I can handle anything, God, I can handle anything. I just can’t handle not knowing. We can’t handle not knowing. I have to know.’ And I heard a voice, and it said, ‘You do know where she is, she’s with me. She’s with me.’ So whether she’s on this earth still or whether she is in heaven, I know where she is, I know who she’s with.”