How ‘Today’s Sheinelle Jones Was ‘Changed in a Good Way’ After Husband’s Death

Sheinelle Jones is using her grief to help others in the wake of her husband Uche Ojeh’s death.

Jones previously stepped away from Today for several months amid her husband’s secret battle with brain cancer. In May 2025, Savannah Guthrie announced on the series that Ojeh had died of glioblastoma at the age of 45. Jones returned to the NBC morning show in September 2025, and recently made her debut as Jenna Bush Hager‘s new fourth hour of Today cohost on Monday, January 12.

In an interview with People published on Thursday, January 15, Jones shared that she’s been “changed in a good way” following her husband’s death. “I’m not afraid of anyone — I’ll talk to anyone — and we can have a conversation because I’ve been through the worst,” she explained. “Now, I’m leaning into fighting for my joy and connecting with people and squeezing the most I can out of life. And I want to see my kids see me do that so that they do the same.”

Jones and Ojeh met as students at Northwestern University and went on to tie the knot in 2007. The couple shared three kids, including son Kayin, 16, and twins Clara and Uche Jr., 13.

While Jones has managed to make something positive out of her grief, she admitted that it is still “excruciating” to deal with. “People see me on TV, and they think, ‘Oh, she’s better.’ It’s like, ‘Oh no, no. I’m not better.’ Every day is like swimming through mud,” she stated. “I’ve had to really do the work. Empathy is my superpower now, and I recognize that I hold two things: I hold my grief, and I also hold this joy. I said it months ago, and I’ll say it now: I am fighting for my joy.”

 

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Using her grief to help others is part of what inspired her to take on her new hosting role on Today With Jenna & Sheinelle. “I really put a lot of thought into it because I knew it would be change for me. And I was like, ‘Can I handle the change?’ And now I’m like, ‘Not only can I handle the change, but it’s easier now because I don’t feel like I’m not doing it for me,'” she said. “I feel like I’m doing it for the woman or the man or the teenager who picks up PEOPLE magazine and they read my story and they’re grieving or they’re holding space for something. I completely underestimated the amount of pain and grief or just stuff that people are holding.”

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Jones added that she hopes her appearance on TV will encourage others in similar situations not to give up. “I feel like if you can turn on [the TV] and not only see me doing it, but see me winning? See me get new opportunities and conquer them and hit this market in a way that I don’t think we’ve seen? I think there’s a void for two kick-ass girls to have sisterhood and laugh one moment, cry the next, talk about our kids, talk about our parents. I can’t wait,” she shared. “And I’m so excited now that I’ve allowed myself to go ahead and feel it and say, ‘You know what? We’re going to rock it.'”

Bush Hager shared some kind words about her new Today partner with the outlet. “I’m witnessing Sheinelle do this so effortlessly, and I know it’s not. I know it’s actually really hard, but she’s doing it,” she stated. “And she’s really such a reminder to all of us that joy and heartbreak can be held at the same time and that we have to find moments of joy and celebration even in darkness.”

Today With Jenna & Sheinelle, Weekdays, 10 a.m./9c, NBC