Savannah Guthrie has been candid about navigating her grief after the death of her father, Charles Guthrie.
Savannah was 16 when Charles died from a heart attack, describing the harrowing moment she found out the news from her mom, Nancy Guthrie, and her sister, Annie Guthrie.
“There’s like an electricity in the air,” the Today host recalled during an episode of Hoda Kotb’s “Making Space” podcast in February 2024. “And I can remember my mom coming toward me to try to hug me and tell me really fast, ‘Dad died.’”
Savannah said that hearing of her father’s passing was “shocking,” and it ripped her “whole world apart.” In honor of her dad, Savannah named her son Charles, nicknamed “Charley” for short. (The NBC host also shares daughter Vale with husband Mike Feldman.)
The Mostly What God Does author is leaning on her loved ones after her mother, Nancy, was reported missing in Arizona on February 1, 2026. In a news conference, Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos said Nancy’s home is being considered a crime scene after the state of the house sparked “grave concern.”
“On behalf of our family, I want to thank everyone for the thoughts, prayers and messages of support,” Savannah said in a statement on behalf of the Guthrie family. “Right now, our focus remains on the safe return of our dear mom. We thank law enforcement for their hard work on this case and encourage anyone with information to contact the Pima County Sheriff’s Department at (520) 351-4900.”
Scroll below for more of Savannah’s candid quotes about her late father.
How Savannah Guthrie Manages Her Grief
Savannah said that the grief from losing her father is a feeling that won’t ever go away.
“I always think of grief as like this cup that is like a cup of water that’s full and you carry it around when something like this happens and your water cup is full,” she said on “Making Space” in February 2024. “When it first happens, you might have tons pouring out and pouring out and then you just carry your cup around for your whole life and you spill it out, sometimes in little drops, and sometimes you just hold it and nothing comes out.”
Savannah added, “By the time you die, that cup will be emptied, but it’s going to be something that you carry with you always.”
Savannah Guthrie Praised Her Late Dad’s Personality
On “Making Space,” Savannah remembered her dad as a “force” and “an amazing, magnetic, joyous, charismatic, incredibly loving, warm, kind, forbearing personality.”
She also admitted that she sometimes finds herself getting emotional thinking about Charles.
“Sometimes it feels good if I can have a tear or cry for my father,” Savannah shared. “I’m glad because it’s an act of love. It’s me saying, ‘I still love you, Daddy.’”
How Savannah Guthrie Found Her Faith After Charles Guthrie’s Death
Savannah explained that she leaned on her strong Christian faith after suffering the loss.
“Some of my high school friends who knew of my faith (said), ‘Well, now what do you think? Does that make you not believe or not want to believe in God?’ And I remember saying one time, ‘Oh no, now I need him more than ever,’” the newscaster recalled on “Making Space.”
“I was, like, sitting on it. Why do you have to take on the question of, like, why does God … why would a good God permit suffering?” Savannah told Kotb.
Savannah went on to say that even though she has been through some difficult life moments, she has felt God every step of the way.
“The bad things happened and I was still OK and God was there for me and God loved me,” Savannah explained. “And that’s where my faith transformed.”
Savannah Guthrie Broke Down Recalling Her Dad’s Death
While at a stop on her Mostly What God Does book tour in February 2024, Savannah was asked by Charlotte Jones about the “traumatic” experience of losing her dad.
“Yeah, my father was a larger than life, amazing – I can’t believe you’re making me cry, I haven’t cried about this in a long time – deeply faithful man,” Savannah said with tears streaming down her face. “I can’t believe I’m crying. Darn you, Charlotte, you should be a Today show host!”
“He was our whole lives, and he passed away,” Savannah added. “He had a heart attack, I was 16. I came home one night and he was gone.”
Savannah Guthrie Opened Up About Her Dad’s Health Before His Death
While appearing on Brooke Shields‘ “Now What?” podcast in August 2023, Savannah said that her dad suffered his first heart attack when she was a 13-year-old freshman in high school.
“I don’t think we understood how serious that was,” she said of his health emergency. “And then three years later he had another heart attack, and that one was fatal. It was so unexpected.”
More than 35 years later, Savannah still thinks about the day her world turned upside down.
“I think it changes everything. I always think of it as on our calendars we have B.C. and A.D. There’s a before and after. It’s just this stark dividing line,” she said. “There’s before my dad died and there’s after, and it’s profound. Grief is a lifelong process. I really believe that. There’s acute grief.”
Savannah continued, “I will always carry this grief. It doesn’t mean that I’m not happy, that I’m not joyous, but it’s part of me.”
Savannah Guthrie Wrote a Heartfelt Tribute to Her Dad
In a deeply personal essay for Today.com in June 2014, Savannah shared a Father’s Day tribute to her dad.
“My father was a seemingly unlikely mix of qualities: always strong, sometimes terrifying, loyal to the end and disarmingly gentle and tender when it counted,” she wrote. “He was also tall, affectionate and funny; he had that personality that people describe as ‘lighting up the room.’He was a 5,000-watt bulb who could turn a mundane trip to the post office into a rip-roaring tale. People adored him and gravitated towards him.”
Savannah continued, “But for all these wonderful and magnetic traits, the one I remain most grateful for is his integrity. He had an unbending notion of right and wrong. His moral clarity was demanding and sometimes intimidating, but he tempered it, at the moment you most needed and least expected it, with kindness and mercy.”
In particular, Savannah recalled a time where her dad took her and Annie to the movies and had a witty remark about tickets.
“We were just beyond the age where we could have gotten those ‘under 10’ tickets for a few dollars less,” she reflected. “I remember asking my dad, ‘Why don’t you just get the kids’ tickets? The cashier probably won’t know how old we are.’ I’ll never forget what he said: ‘I’m not going to sell my soul for $2.’”
“That was my father in a nutshell,” she shared. “He refused to talk down to us — so much so that sometimes the things he said were a little cryptic to my young mind. But that was the reason I always remembered them, the words always stayed with me, such that years later, their meaning would suddenly reveal itself — as though he had given me a gift, preserved in time, to be unwrapped years later, when I no longer had him with me.”
Savannah Guthrie Shared a Birthday Shout-Out to Her Late Dad
On her 50th birthday in December 2021, Savannah shared a sweet nod to her dad.
“I was surrounded my dearest. My husband who treats me like a treasure… my darling angel babies… and the three who were there with me at the beginning…on this day 50 years ago today. Mom, Cam, Annie,” she wrote via Instagram. “And not far from mind or heart ever ever: my dear daddy, Christmas baby like me. He never turned 50 from 49. But tonight I have! So I treasure this gift of life and remember you always. And thank god for a half century of His kindness and grace and blessing.”
