Savannah Guthrie Was Never The Same After Her Mark Orchard Divorce

Savannah Guthrie has been with her now-husband, Michael Feldman, since 2009, a year that was marked by opposites. On the one hand, she met her match; on the other, she had just gone through a painful divorce that forever changed her. Her marriage to fellow journalist Mark Orchard ended in January 2009, four years after they met while covering the Michael Jackson trial in 2005. When Guthrie's first marriage started to collapse, she had just snagged a coveted NBC News job as a White House correspondent, adding another layer to the complicated dynamics.

Working to achieve her career goals while navigating a divorce marked what she deemed to be the hardest time of her life. "[I was] 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," she told Hoda Kotb in a January 2026 episode of "Joy 101." Her conversation with her fellow "Today" co-host was among the few times she discussed her split from Orchard.

In 2025, she noted she avoided discussing the matter altogether. "It was horrible and sad, and it broke my heart, and it took me years to recover," she said on Monica Lewinsky's "Reclaiming" podcast. Guthrie had to lean into her faith to get through that time. Guthrie learned an important lesson. "I was definitely a failure. And I really felt loved and carried by God, and that was such an important, integral moment of life," she shared on "Joy 101." Guthrie has moved on, but she has the scars. 

Savannah Guthrie is no stranger to tragedy, and her divorce proved that. One of her biggest fears after her marriage to Mark Orchard fell apart was that she might not fulfill her dream of having a family. She was 36 when she split from her first husband, so she doubted she had enough time left to have kids. "That was a huge disappointment. I was pretty sure that I had lost my opportunity and more or less ruined my life," she told Us Weekly in 2025.

It turned out her divorce didn't put an end to her lifelong wishes to be a mother, but the road was no walk in the park. She met and fell in love with Michael Feldman shortly after her divorce, but he took years to propose. Guthrie even broke up with Feldman on the day he proposed because she had grown tired of waiting. But they finally tied the knot in March 2014, at which point she was four months pregnant.

Guthrie was over 40 when their daughter, Vale, was born in August 2014. "I knew it was the winning lottery ticket to have one child — I was 42 when I had her," she told Health in 2019 (via Today). She would actually end up having two children — and the family she always dreamed of. Guthrie faced fertility struggles the second time, but IVF treatments allowed her to welcome a son at 44. "I would say Vale was a miracle, and Charley was a medical miracle," she said.