Jenna Bush Hager Absent From ‘Today’ This Week NBC’s Today show faced unexpected changes this week as several regular hosts were unavailable. Hoda Kotb continued to substitute for Savannah Guthrie on Monday’s episode, as the search for Guthrie’s missing mother, Nancy Guthrie, continued in Arizona. Al Roker was absent from Studio 1A, with Dylan Dreyer stepping in to report live from the 2026 Players Championship in Florida. Jenna Bush Hager also missed the regular lineup, with Justin Sylvester filling in for her on Monday’s Today With Jenna & Friends episode. Sheinelle Jones explained that Bush Hager was on spring break, marking her first significant absence since the show’s relaunch as Jenna & Sheinelle. Sylvester’s substitute role came with a dramatic twist. He arrived in New York City just over two hours before the episode’s start, having traveled from California where he was covering the 2026 Oscars for E! News. “Girl, I brushed my teeth in the back of a car! I have never done this in my life,” Sylvester joked about his chaotic commute. He recounted being pulled over on the way to the Today set, telling Jones, “I dropped your name so hard!” Sylvester also shared on the show’s Instagram page that he had to pull up a flyer for the Today set on Instagram to prove his urgency. Jones empathized with Sylvester’s struggles, recalling a similar experience from her own time on the show. “That’s happened to me once. It’s almost a rite of passage when you work in morning television that one morning, either you oversleep, or you do whatever, and you have to speed,” she said. She described speeding down the highway at 4 a.m., only to be pulled over by police. “As soon as I saw the [police sirens], I’m like, ‘Oh, my gosh!’” she recounted.#today_show #hoda_kotb #jenna_bush_hager #sylvester #2026_players_championship
