Watch The ‘Today’ Interview That Caused Kelly Rowland To Walk Off The Set Because Savannah Guthrie Was Being Too ‘Aggressive’
February 25, 2024 by Maria Pierides
Some of the Today hosts have come under fire in the past for interrupting and speaking over guests (yes, Jenna Bush Hager, we’re looking at you) or for interrogating their guests a little too harshly, among other things. And it looks like something similar may have happened again – this time during an interview with Savannah Guthrie and Kelly Rowland.
On the Thursday February 15th episode of the morning show, the former Destiny’s Child singer was talking with Guthrie about her steamy role in Tyler Perry’s new movie, Mea Culpa. Things seemed to be going swimmingly, until Guthrie turned attention away from the movie and started asking Rowland questions about her former Destiny’s Child bandmate, Beyoncé.
As well as offering short and blunt answers to the Beyoncé questions, Rowland seemed irritated at the end of the interview when Guthrie mentioned that she would be filling in for Jenna Bush Hager in the fourth hour as a guest host on Today with Hoda & Jenna. Instead of being excited about the guest hosting role, Rowland simply replied: “We’ll see.” She then walked off the set and temporarily left Kotb without a co-host, which then resulted in singer and The Voice coach Rita Ora filling in at the last moment!
Since the interview, there have been many theories about why Rowland seemed so upset and didn’t fulfil her guest hosting duties. Some sources say Kelly was simply unhappy with her dressing room (more on this later) while others think it was down to Guthrie’s “aggressive” questions about Beyoncé, which led Rowland to feel “disrespected.” Will we ever find out the truth?
An insider reportedly told The Wrap that Rowland left Today because she “felt disrespected” after Guthrie continued to “aggressively” ask her questions about the “Break My Soul” singer. One of the questions Guthrie asked was, “What do you think about your friend Beyoncé?” to which Rowland replied, “‘I’m so proud of her.” Guthrie then asked her what she thought about her venturing into country music, saying, “Were you surprised, and what do you think about it?” to which Rowland replied, “I’m so proud of her – so happy for her.”