Savannah Guthrie feels mortified after using a not-safe-for-work word live while interviewing movie star Ryan Reynolds about his new movie. Ironically, Reynolds is starring in the very kids-friendly If.
The movie features a cat dressed like an octopus. Reynolds’ wife Blake Lively voices the character, which the poster describes as a “kitten of the sea.” The character kickstarted a debate about what the character should be called in the film.
Guthrie brought up the character, according to People. So she really only has herself to blame.
“She plays a kitty. I think one of the kitten ones,” Reynolds first said, before Guthrie corrected him, “It’s actually an octopus, just FYI.”
“No, but it’s a cata-puss,” Reynolds said. “A pus-a-kitty? Kitty-pus?” That’s when Guthrie exclaimed, “Octop—y!” named after the 1983 James Bond film. The second half of that is also a slang term referring to female private parts.
“I think that is what it’s called!” she said. However, she refused to take the out that Reynolds gave her. “I didn’t make that up,” she said. “No, I would never!”
Hoda Kotb quickly corrected her. “It’s Octo-puss,” she said.
Ryan Reynolds Pokes Fun At Savannah Guthrie
Guthrie immediately felt embarrassed, realizing her flub. “Oh, my God, I have to leave. Like, I don’t even know who I am right now. May I be excused?” she said, turning to Kotb. “You do the rest. I’m so embarrassed!”
“By the way, we’re all canceled this morning,” Reynolds assured her. “Good job, everybody. We did it!”
Today anchorman Al Roker also teased her as well. “If you had put out the odds of who was going to take us down, you would have been the last person I would have said,” he told her.
“Honestly, I don’t know what happened,” Guthrie said. “The thing is, I thought I read it in the research note. So it was on brand, I read the note!”
“You volunteered as tribute in the middle of that and we’re all done,” Reynolds joked.
“I just want to say that I don’t think I’ve said that word in my entire life, in any form or fashion,” she told her co-anchors afterward. “I’m dying of humiliation.”
“I’ve sat next to you for many years, I’ve never heard it,” Kotb agreed. It’s proof that mistakes sometimes happen to the best of us.