‘Today’ Host Savannah Guthrie Debuts Her ‘New Voice’ One Month After Vocal Cord Surgery

Savannah Guthrie is showing off her “new voice” as she continues to recover from vocal cord surgery.

The TODAY star made a virtual appearance on Tuesday’s episode of the NBC morning show, surprising co-hosts Craig Melvin, Jenna Bush Hager, Al Roker, Carson Daly and Sheinelle Jones with a brief virtual chat to share the latest on her recovery.

While Guthrie initially used her dry-erase board to greet her co-stars with a “love you,” she suddenly decided it would be “easier for [her] to just talk,” despite being on vocal rest.

After the journalist revealed late last year that she would be taking a hiatus from TODAY to undergo surgery on her vocal cords, she shared that the vocal rest she’s been on is nearing its end.

“I am still on vocal rest, but I’m allowed to talk for five to 10 minutes every hour,” Guthrie explained, as she joked, “This is my new voice, or my old voice but my new voice.”

While Roker said Guthrie’s voice “sounds the same” as before the surgery, Melvin disagreed, telling her, “No, you sound markedly better!”

“I think the good news is that it worked,” Guthrie shared. “And Sheinelle knows, she went through this and had this surgery, it’s kind of slow recovery. You’re allowed to talk, and if you talk too much — which is a real risk for me — you start to feel it, so you just have to take it easy.”

Daly then asked if Guthrie had taken her new voice for a “test drive” to yell at her 11-year-old daughter Vale and 9-year-old son Charley, which she affirmed with a smile. “A long weekend will bring that out, especially when [husband Michael Feldman] had to travel. It finally got there.”

Guthrie also revealed that she would be officially returning to TODAY on Monday, but that she would be making an appearance on Friday to share more about her vocal cord surgery in a special segment.

Guthrie shared the news of her upcoming surgery in December, explaining, “Some of you have noticed that my voice has been very scratchy and started to crack a little bit. Well, I have found out what it is. I have vocal nodules and I also have a polyp. It’s not a big, big deal, but I am going to have to have a surgery in the new year and be off for a couple of weeks, so this is my last day for a little while.”

While she joked that some TODAY viewers may have thought she had the “world’s longest head cold,” Guthrie noted that she was excited to “have a solution” after years of dealing with the same problem.