Casual Today viewers may have noticed that Savannah Guthrie wasn’t on the morning program for a while. She was forced to take a break amid health issues. In a candid interview, the NBC host opened up about the loss of her ‘sexy’ voice.
Today Host Savannah Guthrie Mourns Loss Of ‘Sexy’ Voice
Savannah Guthrie has been a co-host on the Today Show for nearly 14 years. She unexpectedly announced in late 2025 that she was taking time off from the morning program. She explained to viewers that she was having vocal issues and the doctor discovered a polyp and nodules on her vocal cords. Her voice is obviously important for her job, so she had the surgery ASAP.
She finally returned to the morning news program after more than a month at home recovering. She opened up to PEOPLE magazine about a surprising part of her pre-surgery voice that she’ll miss. Savannah Guthrie knew she was having voice problems for a while, but initially chalked it up to age.
“My voice definitely has gotten deeper over the years. And it’s really just in the last year or two that I felt like it was not just deeper, but it was raspier, scratchier. And I tried to tell myself it was good, like a sexy Demi Moore kind of thing,” she said about the vocal issues. Medication and vocal therapy didn’t help.
Then her vocal issues started affecting her job. “In November and December, almost every day I would have to redo segments because I could not get through a sentence, and it was just really hard. It was frustrating and it was embarrassing,” the Today host shared.
At first, doctors only found nodules on her vocal cords. Once they found a polyp, surgery was the only choice left.
What She Did During Vow Of Silence
The surgery went well, but the aftermath wasn’t easy on Savannah Guthrie. She wasn’t supposed to talk for weeks while her vocal cords healed. She told PEOPLE magazine the surprising hobby she picked up while at home in New York City recovering. “It was such a beautiful time of solitude and reflection. I was writing and reading a lot more, and I started to paint a little bit. I don’t think I’ll have a painting career, but the most beautiful thing about it is just that it’s tapping into a different part of your brain.”
She had an important message to anyone struggling with vocal issues: “There are a lot of people who speak for a living, like teachers I’ve heard from, who go through this. If you feel like you have this hoarseness, it’s worth getting it checked out.”
While Savannah Guthrie misses her “sexy” Demi Moore-like voice, she’s happy with the results of the surgery.
Jennifer Havener grew up in a small town in Upstate New York. She earned her B.A in Writing & Literature from Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. She always knew watching reality TV shows and soap operas, particularly ‘Days of Our Lives’, would come in handy someday. When she’s not writing, she’s playing with her dogs, Lola and Ruger
