Today’s new co-host, Sheinelle Jones, shared during her first day on the job how one of her last text message conversations with her late husband predicted the big moment.
“There was an article that said that Hoda was going to depart, and he felt like it was my turn to shine, and to try,” Jones told Bush Hager of her husband Uche Ojeh. “Now it feels like confirmation because here we are two years later, and he’s like, ‘Told you,’” she said through tears.
Hoda Kotb stepped down from her role in January 2025, only a few months before Ojeh would die from glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer, in May. He and Jones share son Kayin, 16, and 13-year-old twins, Clara and Uche. Jones shared a screengrab of the tear-jerking exchange with her late husband on Monday.
“I did not plan to share this,” she said.
Along with a snippet from an article announcing Kotb’s departure, Ojeh put “the strong arm emojis and all the things” to express his enthusiasm that his wife could one day fill the vacant role.
“When Hoda announced that she was leaving, he was really sick, and so he wasn’t talking as much,” Jones explained, “but I could talk to him, and he would send me emojis and stuff like that. And that would be how we talked.”
Jones said she didn’t want to entertain the thought of career progression while Ojeh was battling the disease, but he was insistent that one day she could take Kotb’s place.
“It didn’t even register for me,” she said. “He kept trying to get back to it, and I was like, ‘No, no. We have to save your life first,’” she added, getting choked up. “‘I don’t want to talk about me. I want to talk about you.’”
Though Ojeh ultimately succumbed to the disease, Jones said she was happy to be in the permanent co-host chair on the newly rebranded Today with Jenna & Sheinelle (formerly Jenna & Friends after Kotb left), proving him right.
“Uche always felt like, when we were in college, like, ‘Oh, you should do a show,’” she said. Prior to her new role on Today‘s fourth hour, Jones hosted the show’s third hour with Dylan Dreyer, Al Roker, and Craig Melvin.
Bush Hager was also emotional during Jones’s anecdote on Monday.
“Well, I know he’s looking down, with your grandmother, who you also just recently lost,” she said through her own tears, “and they’re probably dancing to our new song, and cheering you on.”
Jones ended the story by flexing her bicep to imitate the strong-arm emoji that Ujeh used to encourage her.
