A true 10-year reunion. Katie Couric is returning to the Today show for a one-week stint to fill in for cohost Savannah Guthrie, who is out on maternity leave.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Couric, 59, will temporarily take over Guthrie’s spot starting Monday, January 2, opposite her former cohost, 58-year-old Matt Lauer. This will be Couric’s first return to the morning program as a cohost since she left in 2006 to join CBS’ Evening News, becoming the first solo female anchor of a network evening newscast.
Guthrie, who gave birth to her second child, a healthy baby boy Friday, December 9, recently signed a new long-term contract with Today. Couric was rumored to be Guthrie’s substitute in 2014 after the news anchor had her first child, daughter Vale, but Couric’s guest stint never happened, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Prior to leaving for CBS in 2006, Couric had anchored the Today show for 15 years, and her partnership with Lauer was one of the show’s most successful in viewership and ratings. (The pair remain good friends.) The last time she appeared on the Today show, was in 2011, when she was a guest-promoting her book The Best Advice I Ever Got.
Couric is currently the global anchor for Yahoo News and recently produced a documentary about gun violence in the U.S. titled Under the Gun.
Although she has yet to confirm the news of her return to the Today show, Couric has spoken out about her love for the show before. In a 2013 interview with shock jock Howard Stern, the veteran news anchor called her past cohosting gig “the best job.”
“There were some cautious overtures to me to possibly come back to the Today show, but they evaporated,” Couric told Stern at the time.
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