As Savannah Guthrie recounted her most humbling moment on television, it all stemmed from a notorious rumor involving Khloe Kardashian that led her to feel a sense of unease and reluctance during an interview on the Today show in 2012. It was just a year into her tenure at NBC's morning program, and she found herself at the precipice of asking the star of the Kardashian family about her biological father.
"I asked Khloe Kardashian, with ten seconds to go before the break, about the rumors that her father wasn't her biological father," Savannah recalled to her co-hosts and Andy Cohen on the program on October 20th. "I was so embarrassed; I felt this immense pressure, like I had just started and the producers wanted me to ask this juicy question, but I didn't want to."
During the February 2012 interview, Savannah had said to Khloe, "Quickly, speaking of rumors—actually, I think we're out of time. Is there anything more to say about who your father, your biological father is?" The reality star responded with a laugh, "I don't know who my daddy is."
The rumors about Khloe's paternal parentage had been fueled a month prior to her interview with Savannah when Robert's second ex-wife, Jan Ashley, was quoted in Star magazine saying that he had told her "Khloe's not really a Kardashian," while his third wife, Ellen Pearson Kardashian, told the outlet, "Robert did question the fact that Khloe was his." On the same day, the now-41-year-old tweeted, "The audacity you have to mention my father's name like this! Should be ashamed of yourself! I let a lot of things slide but this one is really low... YOU ARE DISGUSTING! (Yes, you know who you are)."
In a sworn declaration included with his 1999 petition to annul his marriage to Jan after five months, which E! News obtained in 2012, Robert had himself legally declared that he had "four biological children." Over the years, the ongoing paternity rumors—which were addressed on Keeping Up With the Kardashians—spurred a response from a key person attached to them: Robert's friend and former client, O.J. Simpson.
"Khloe, like all the girls, I'm very proud of you," tweeted the NFL star who was acquitted in a 1995 trial of murdering his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson in 2019, almost five years before his death. "The simple facts of the matter are she is not mine."
