Savannah Guthrie Has Always Been Reluctant to Discuss Her First Marriage

Although she's been the host of the Today show for years now, Savannah Guthrie has always been careful about what details about her life she shares with the public. The news anchor likely understands that building trust with your audience means that there are certain things you don't talk about, and she's also been careful to shield her privacy.

One of the things Savannah is most reluctant to talk about is her first marriage, which ended in divorce. Here's what we know about that relationship, and why Savannah is so reluctant to talk about it.

Before her current marriage to Michael Feldman, Savannah was married to Mark Orchard, a fellow journalist. The two of them got married in 2005 and divorced four years later, and during an interview with Monica Lewinsky, Savannah explained why she didn't like to spend much time on that relationship. She explained that her divorce is "the one thing [she] didn't ever want to talk about," explaining that she really didn't want to talk through it in detail.

"Some of it was just too personal and too embarrassing," she explained. "It was horrible and sad, and it broke my heart, and it took me years to recover," she said, explaining her divorce. "And I'm not blaming anyone, but I don't really want to get into it."

Because she's reluctant to talk about it, we still don't know exactly what happened in their relationship, or why it fell apart.

In speaking with Monica, though, Savannah explained that while writing Mostly What God Does: Reflections on Seeking and Finding His Love Everywhere, her book of essays, she realized that there were certain topics that were going to be off-limits.

"I set that boundary because I felt like it needed to be set," she explained. She was also clear with her readers, saying that it was not going to be a salacious tell-all.

Mark still works as a journalist and TV news producer, although he definitely doesn't have the same high profile as Savannah. Mostly, he appears to work behind the scenes, and he is best known for being Savannah's first husband.

In speaking with Hoda Kotb for the podcast Joy Rides, Savannah explained that the hardest period in her life was going through her divorce from Mark.

“Probably the most difficult time was when I was getting separated and divorced from my first husband,” she explained. “I was in my thirties. I felt old, but I now see that I was pretty young, and I was sad about it.”

“And I was also starting a new job at a place called NBC and trying really hard to make my way and make my little dream come true while other dreams were falling apart. And it made me have to really dig deep, and I felt like a failure.”

Savannah is in a settled, happy relationship now, but it seems like her thirties were upended by divorce. It's not an uncommon American story, but it seems to have had a profound effect on her.