Savannah Guthrie announces return to TODAY. Here’s when — and why she’s decided to come back

Savannah Guthrie will be returning to TODAY and has opened up about her decision to come back to “this beautiful place that we call home.”

In the third part of Savannah’s interview with Hoda Kotb that aired on TODAY March 27, the TODAY co-anchor spoke about why she is coming back amidst the ongoing search for her missing mother, Nancy Guthrie.

Hoda shared that Savannah’s first day back will be Monday, April 6, the day after Easter. It will mark her first in-studio appearance on the show since Jan. 30, which was two days before her mother was reported missing from her home in Arizona.

“It’s hard to imagine doing it because it’s such a place of joy and lightness, and I can’t come back and try to be something that I’m not,” Savannah said. “But I can’t not come back, because it’s my family. I think it’s part of my purpose right now.”

“I want to smile. And when I do, it will be real,” she continued. “I will have joy. 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. And I have been so grateful to have this family. I consider this my family, my greater family.”

Savannah expanded on her thought process when deciding to return to the show.

“When times are hard, you want to be with your family. And I want to be with my family,” Savannah said in reference to her TODAY colleagues. “And so I don’t know if I can do it. I don’t know if I’ll belong anymore, but I would like to try. I would like to try.”

“I’m not going to be the same,” she added. “But maybe it’s like that old poem: ‘More beautiful in the broken places.’”

Savannah had previously expressed to the TODAY family that she planned on returning to the show. She paid an off-camera visit to Studio 1A at Rockefeller Center on March 5 to show her gratitude for the support for her family.

“I really wanted to come and see everybody,” she told Hoda. “I just love this beautiful place that we call home, where we get to come and be every day. And I know how much people have prayed for me and loved me.

“All the people that you see on TV, and then all the people that you don’t. All the notes and messages that I have received are just so beautiful. I just wanted to be with my family. They’re my family, too.”

This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from TODAY: