Savannah Guthrie did not appear on Monday’s live broadcast of the Today show, as the anchor is set to take a leave of absence from the show.
Guthrie, 54, announced on Thursday’s episode that she would be stepping away from her Today show duties for the next “few” weeks to film a new project.
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“We’re about to do it. Guys, I’m headed over to shoot Wordle over the next few weeks,” she said of hosting the new Wordle game show executive produced by Jimmy Fallon. “We’re going to shoot the whole season and we’re super excited.”
“I can’t wait for everyone to see it,” she said. “It’ll probably air, I think, in the new year.”
Her Today colleagues bemoaned her loss while also celebrating the exciting change in her career. Carson Daly said he “can’t wait” for the new show, with Sheinelle Jones calling it “full circle” after remembering “when Wordle hit the Today show and we became obsessed.”
“We’re going to lose you for a minute, though,” Craig Melvin said.
Guthrie and Fallon first announced her participation in the project in May. “This is very exciting. I have a big announcement to make,” Fallon said at the time when he appeared on the 8:00 hour of the Today show. “We’ve been developing Wordle as a game show for the past two-and-a-half years with The New York Times, and it’s official: We are making Wordle Game Show with our host, Savannah Guthrie!”
“We’ve been holding this secret between us for a long time now,” Guthrie added. “And we’re going to make Wordle a game show.”
It won’t be Guthrie’s first hiatus from the Today show desk this year. She returned in April after the February disappearance of her mother, Nancy Guthrie, who remains missing. She also took a few days off earlier this month, which a source told PEOPLE had nothing to do with her mother’s unsolved case.
At the time of the announcement, Savannah thanked everyone behind the scenes for working with her schedule as she and her family coped with Nancy’s disappearance.
“We’ve been working on this for a really long time, and actually we just found out in February that we got picked up and we were supposed to shoot in March,” she said. “And I just want to say a quick thank you to NBC and to Jimmy and his production company and the The New York Times and the studio and Universal because when everything happened with me and my family, they just stopped everything and said ‘We’ll wait for you.’ And Hollywood is a really tough business, and I didn’t expect that, and I just want to say thank you, it means so much to me.”
“We can’t do it without you,” Fallon told her.
“It kind of feels strange to do everything right now, but this is something that’s full of joy,” Savannah said.
