‘Today’: How Sheinelle Jones Feels About Stepping Away From Show’s Third Hour
What To Know
- Sheinelle Jones is leaving the third hour of NBC’s Today to become Jenna Bush Hager’s cohost on the show’s fourth hour starting January 12.
- Jones described the transition as bittersweet, likening it to leaving a familiar neighborhood but remaining part of the same community.
- Dylan Dreyer shared why several of Jones’ final third hour episodes will be prerecorded.
Sheinelle Jones will soon be saying goodbye to the third hour of Today.
Jones will depart the NBC morning show’s third hour when she takes over as Jenna Bush Hager‘s fourth hour cohost on January 12. Jones opened up about her upcoming move during a recent episode of the Today SiriusXM show “Off the Rails.”
“It just feels like leaving my neighborhood. I’m not leaving the city. I’ll still go to the same school, but it’s like the moments we had on the bus and having to walk to school,” she shared in a clip from the podcast shared via Instagram on Wednesday, December 10. “That’s what it feels like. I feel like I’m leaving my neighborhood.”
Dylan Dreyer used a Girl Scouts phrase to describe Jones’ show move, stating, “‘Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver, and the other is gold.’ So, you don’t get rid of anyone. You just add new,” she shared.
Dreyer also revealed that several of Jones’ final episodes on the third hour of Today will be prerecorded. “We pre-tape for the couple weeks leading up to the holidays. But some of our funniest shows are our pre-taped shows,” she stated. “That’s when the chat goes off the rails because we’re not in, like, a day-of, news, topical type situation. We’re like, ‘What are some stories we can chat about?’ Al [Roker] picks it up, and we just go along with it.”
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Jones joined the Today family in 2014 and became a third hour cohost in 2019. On the radio show, Jones told Dreyer that she’s had “some of the best laughs of my life” cohosting the third hour with her, Roker, and Craig Melvin over the years.
Bush Hager had cohosted the fourth hour of Today with Hoda Kotb since 2019. Following Kotb’s departure from Today earlier this year, the show relaunched as Today With Jenna & Friends and has featured Bush Hager leading the show with an ever-changing lineup of celebrity guest hosts. Jones made her Jenna & Friends cohosting debut in September, the same month she returned to Today following the death of her husband, Uche Ojeh, in May.
During their radio conversation, Dreyer playfully asked Jones how her wardrobe will change as Bush Hager’s guest host, joking that Bush Hager wears “expensive clothes.”
“You know how I am. I don’t even carry a purse,” Jones quipped. “I bet you Jenna has a purse.” Jones noted that she and Dreyer used to aspire to be “those people, like, when they go to the grocery store, they just look put together,” but instead bonded over their love of sweatshirts.
“Dylan, I have to be better in this new chapter,” Jones stated, to which Dreyer replied, “You have to be you, and you is whatever it is you’re wearing right now.” For that day’s radio show recording, Jones was sporting one of her husband’s T-shirts.
Jones wrapped up the conversation by praising her and Dreyer’s friendship. “We’ve had a thing, and I’m not going anywhere,” she said before telling listeners, “ So now, if you want our chemistry, you’ve got to listen to Off the Rails.”
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