Longtime Today host Savannah Guthrie is taking some time off from work to undergo vocal surgery.
The 53-year-old TV host announced her upcoming absence from the NBC program Friday.
“Some of you have noticed that my voice has been very scratchy and started to crack a little bit like Peter Brady, who was going through a change,” she said on Today, after showing a clip from The Brady Bunch of the character’s voice cracking while he sang.
“Well, I have found out what it is. I have vocal nodules, and now I also have a polyp. It’s not a big, big deal, but I am going to have a surgery real early in the new year and be off for a couple of weeks,” Guthrie added. “So it’s my last day for a little while. So I just want to let everyone know, and if you’ve been wondering, do I have the world’s longest head cold? No, I don’t.”
She then told her co-hosts that because of the surgery, she won’t be able to speak for a couple of weeks. “Totally silent. I know the jokes write themselves,” she added. “Christmas coming early for my family.”
Guthrie is the mother of two children, Vale, 11, and Charley, eight, whom she shares with husband Michael Feldman.
Guthrie did not specify when in 2026 she would be returning to the Today show.
In Friday’s episode, Guthrie’s co-host, Sheinelle Jones, shared that she underwent the same vocal surgery in 2020.
“The silver lining is you have permission to be still,” Jones said. “The house gets quiet, the kids are gonna want to help you out.”
After Jones gifted her colleague a whiteboard to use and write on when she can’t speak, Guthrie acknowledged that she’s actually “really excited for the surgery.”
“This has been going on for years, honestly,” she added, referring to her scratchy voice.
She then quipped about how her singing skills could change after the surgery. “It's really funny, I used to sing. Then I couldn't sing anymore and then I couldn't speak anymore,” Guthrie added. “So who knows, guys, the tour is happening in 2026.”
Guthrie, who’s been co-anchoring Today since 2012, has often spoken openly about her health. She previously underwent several eye surgeries after her then-two-year-old son, Charley, accidentally hit her right eye with a toy train in 2019.
She had her third and final surgery on her eye in 2021, to fix a cataract that developed after her initial retinal reattachment surgery in 2019.
“I’m seeing well, and I just actually got a prescription for eyeglasses, which I haven’t been able to wear [yet],” she told People in 2021. “I kind of can’t believe that this all took so long, but honestly, since the surgery I had last summer after the pandemic, my eyesight’s been dramatically better.”
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