Savannah Guthrie stood her ground about what personal matters she wanted to write about in her book — and her divorce was off the table.
“I don’t want to talk about getting divorced,” the journalist, 53, told host Monica Lewinsky on the Tuesday, July 1, episode of her “Reclaiming” podcast. “It was horrible, sad and it broke my heart. It took me years to recover. I’m not blaming anyone, but I really don’t want to get into it.”
Guthrie was previously married to Mark Orchard from 2005 to 2009 before she found The One with Michael Feldman. Feldman and the Today host wed in 2014 and share two children, Vale, 10, and Charley, 8.
Last year, Guthrie published Mostly What God Does, which included a series of personal essays broaching the subjects of faith, love, presence, grace, hope, gratitude and more. The spiritual book also included a disclaimer that let readers know that Gurthie wasn’t going to touch on some personal matters.
“The disclaimer was basically like, ‘Look, if you think you’re going to write about faith and try to — certainly not answer — but discuss some of these hardest questions. Despite the fact the picture I’ve just drawn … I’m not writing a whitewash,’” she reflected. “I tried to at least talk about some of the hardest subjects there are about loss and about injustice. I try to take on all those things and just examine them and reflect on them — certainly not solve them.”
Guthrie acknowledged that she’s nowhere near being a “theologian” and occasionally attended “vacation bible school.”
“I’m just a lay person, so take it with a grain,” she said. “But also you might be wondering, it seems like you, right now, have it all kind of going for you. You’re married, you’ve got these two kids, you got this great job, like what problems do you have? So I wanted to say I have experienced adversity, but I don’t really want to tell you about the depths of that. Because some of that was just too personal and too embarrassing.”
While Guthrie set a boundary on what she would and wouldn’t share, she did include some “embarrassing” journal entries and notes. She also noted that she doesn’t believe in a “hierarchy of pain” as all people have their struggles.
“I’m not gonna say who had it worse,” she said. “If we did, I wouldn’t be in the top … but I have had my moments and I have had my sadnesses.”
In her disclaimer, Guthrie advised readers not to drive themselves “crazy” trying to pinpoint what she was talking about.
“Look, some things happened and when I’m writing about them, this isn’t in a vacuum, but I don’t want to go there … I don’t want to give you the gory details, but I do want to share with you,” she explained. “I understand you might have these questions, and maybe this won’t be enough for you, but I just felt like I had to.”
Guthrie added that when she was in the writing process, she never got any “pushback” on including the disclaimer.
