‘Jenna & Friends’: Sheinelle Jones Cries With Jenna Bush Hager During Hosting Debut

Tears were shed during Sheinelle Jones‘ Today With Jenna & Friends cohosting debut.

Jenna Bush Hager kicked off her week with Jones on the fourth hour of Today by recalling how the two of them used to fill infor former hosts Hoda Kotb and Kathie Lee Gifford. Jones, for her part, jokingly called her Jenna & Friends appearance an “arranged marriage,” as many fans have wanted to see her host alongside Jenna since Kotb’s Today exit earlier this year.

The pair’s conversation took an emotional turn, as they opened up about Jones’ husband, Uche Ojeh, who died of brain cancer at the age of 45 in May. Jones — who had been absent from the show since December 2024 — made her official return to Today on September 5.

“You were gone, and yet, when you came back, it was like no time was gone. It feels like you’ve been here the whole summer,” Bush Hager remarked, to which Jones added, “It feels like I was never gone, and then, it also feels like it was nine months.”

Bush Hager got teary-eyed while praising Jones for her strength amid her husband’s health battle. “I’ve never met anybody stronger,” she gushed. “I just can’t sit here and sit back and not say this to you. Watching you over the last year has been remarkable. And like when you just said, ‘I want to give him the best sendoff,’ I remember sitting at his funeral, thinking — and I’ve been to, like, state funerals, and such — ‘There’s never been a more beautiful funeral.’ Never. And you did that.”

Jones, herself, got emotional while sharing how a song suggestion from Bush Hager helped her work through her grief. “You sent me a text, and you sent me a song, and it was by Blessing [Offor]. I had never heard of him,” she shared. “And there’s a part that says, ‘I know there’s gonna be some brighter days / I swear that love will find you in your pain / I feel it in me, like the beating of life in my veins / I know there’s gonna be some brighter days.’ And I just would play that over and over and over because the concept of love finding you in your pain, that’s what this is.”

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The tears kept flowing from both women later in the show, as Bush Hager surprised Jones with video messages from her closest friends. “Her world shattered, and each of us just picks up one piece and we do what we can to try and help her hold it together,” one friend explained, while another dubbed them as “Sheinelle’s secret society.”

Sharing inspirational messages for Jones, one of her friends said, “I want you to know that we’ve got you and you’ve got this. You’ve got this.” Another added, “The world has so much to offer you, and you have so much to offer the world. I want you to keep bringing your love and light to all of us.”

As an added surprise, all of Jones’ friends later joined her and Bush Hager in Today‘s Studio 1A. “Friends are the ones that lift us up when we need them, that are there to celebrate. Y’all have done all of that, and I think it’s so amazing,” Bush Hager said before asking Jones, “I mean, Sheinelle, where would you be without these ladies?”

NBC

“I do not know. There have been a lot of tears, a lot of laughter, the hardest guttural cry I’ve ever had,” Jones replied. “From my highest moments to my lowest moments to the hardest laughs that I’ve had in my 40s, [they’re] all on this couch.”

Jones will continue to serve as Bush Hager’s Jenna & Friends cohost through Friday, September 26.

Today With Jenna & Friends, Weekdays, 10 a.m. ET, NBC

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