Savannah Guthrie’s would-be co-anchors at the Olympics publicly supported her after she pulled out of co-hosting the Opening Ceremonies in Italy due to her mother’s disappearance.
Terry Gannon and Guthrie’s replacement, Mary Carillo, acknowledged her absence during Friday’s telecast from the ceremony in Milan.
“We’re certainly without a very important and beloved member of our team tonight,” Gannon said. “She is dearly missed by everybody.”
Carillo noted that amid the desperate search for her mother, Nancy Guthrie, Savannah has “extended family” at NBC.
“She’s covered so many Olympics, and she loves it,” Carillo said. “Right now, of course, Savannah and her family are in unspeakable, unfathomable pain. We know that in the U.S., her extended family is legion. Savannah, my friend, it’s the same way here.”
Gannon chimed in, saying, “We send our love and prayers and all of our positive energy to Savannah tonight.” The duo was also joined by Olympic gold medalist Shaun White.
Savannah was also set to tape episodes of “Today” with former co-anchor Hoda Kotb, who divulged her own “feeling of helplessness” on Friday’s episode.
“We’re all so close with her and we all want to help her,” Kotb said, noting that Savannah “was [always] there” for her “Today” show “family.”
Co-host Crag Melvin countered, “We’re not helpless because it’s prayer and hope. Prayer and hope. Prayer and hope.”
Kotb has also since pulled out of Olympics amid the ongoing search for Savannah’s mother.
Nancy, 84, was last seen at her Tucson, Arizona, home on Saturday evening following a family outing. When she failed to appear at church the following morning, she was reported missing.
FBI special agent and former CIA member Tracy Walder told Page Six the Guthrie matriarch had likely been “stalked for some time” before her disappearance, which authorities believe was a kidnapping.
TMZ founder Harvey Levin, meanwhile, told CNN on Thursday that investigators had a “radius around Tucson” after receiving a purported ransom note in the case demanding billions in Bitcoin — though Walder told us he didn’t believe money was necessarily behind the motive.
“I, in my gut, feel like this is someone that either had some kind of obsession with Savannah because of how high profile she is, and this was a way to potentially get to her,” he said, noting that it could also be “a person that has some kind of beef” with the journalist.
Savannah, her brother Camron Guthrie and sister Annie Guthrie took to social media two days ago with an emotional plea asking for “proof of life” from Nancy’s alleged captors.
The Pima County Sheriff’s Department and FBI have since announced a $50,000 reward for “information leading to the recovery of Nancy Guthrie and/or the arrest and conviction of anyone involved in her disappearance.”
As security beefed up at NBC’s studios in New York City, “Today With Jenna & Sheinelle” co-host Sheinelle Jones confessed the team had been “rattled” by the disappearance.
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