Savannah Guthrie to return to 'Today' on April 6 after mother's disappearance

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After a two-month absence sparked by her 84-year-old mother’s apparent abduction, Savannah Guthrie will return to NBC's “Today” show next month, saying in an interview that aired Friday “joy will be my protest.”

Hoda Kotb said after her emotional interview with her former co-host aired that Guthrie will return April 6. Guthrie said it’s hard to imagine returning to a place of joy and lightness. While she doesn’t know if she can do it or if she will belong anymore, Guthrie said she wants to try.

“I can’t come back and try to be something that I’m not. But I can’t not come back, because it’s my family,” Guthrie said. “I think it’s part of my purpose right now. I want to smile and when I do, it will be real and my joy will be my protest. My joy will be my answer. And being there is joyful and when it’s not, I’ll say so.”

Nancy Guthrie was reported missing on Feb. 1. Authorities believe she was kidnapped, abducted or otherwise taken against her will. The FBI released surveillance videos of a masked man who was outside Guthrie’s front door in Tucson on the night she vanished. The Guthrie family has offered a $1 million reward for information leading to the recovery of their mother.

In another part of the interview with Kotb that aired Thursday, Guthrie shared that she and her siblings knew that their mother's disappearance wasn’t a case of a person wandering off, given the pain she was living with and knowing that doors at her home were propped open, blood was found on the front doorstep and a camera had been yanked off. She said they knew something was very wrong and her brother knew immediately that their mother had been kidnapped for ransom.

The longtime “Today” show co-anchor said they don’t know that their mother was taken because of her, but acknowledged that it would make sense and that was “too much to bear.” While she said some of the purported ransom notes were fake, Guthrie said she believed the two that she and her siblings responded to were real. But the circumstances were surreal.