“Today” show’s Matt Lauer and his new co-host Savannah Guthrie share a shocking secret. What is it? They’re both accused home wreckers!
Allegedly, Lauer carried on an illicit affair with a married Florida woman, Jessica Thorman, until shortly before his 1998 wedding to Dutch model Annette Roque. The woman’s husband, Zoltan Molnar, accused Lauer of wrecking his marriage, declaring: “He’s not the goody-goody nice guy he looks like on TV!” And now we are learning that Savannah, 40, was the “other woman” in a love triangle that set media types abuzz when she fell in love with married British TV producer Mark Orchard!
But after Orchard dumped his wife to marry her, Savannah kicked the BBC newsman to the curb – divorcing him and taking up with a high-powered Washington insider.
A BBC source close to Orchard tells that “The poor guy was totally smitten by Savannah and gave up his family for her. She turned
his life upside down.”
The two hooked up while they were both reporting on the late Michael Jackson’s sexual molestation trial in 2005, sources say.
“Savannah was covering the trial for Court TV and Mark for the BBC, and there was instant chemistry between them,” a source told “There was a lot of talk among other journalists there about Savannah and Mark pairing off.”
Over the course of the five-month trial, Orchard left his wife, “New York Times” reporter Anne Kornblut, and began publicly dating Savannah. Even though the lovebirds wed in December 2005, the romance was said to have tarnished Savannah’s name. And they wound up splitting about three years later.
“Savannah has a reputation of being a great journalist, but her affair with Mark gave her a black eye in some circles,” the source revealed.
Single-again Savannah – then NBC’s White House correspondent – began dating political consultant Michael Feldman,who’d been a senior aide to former Vice President Al Gore.
But when the “Today” show called, she hightailed it to New York, and the relationship short-circuited, said a source. “Both Savannah and Michael said things fizzled under the stress of trying to maintain a long-distance romance,” said the source.“But the truth is that when Savannah knew she was on the fast track, she put everything else aside, including Michael!”
