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Sheinelle Jones sat down for an emotional interview about her late husband Uche Ojeh’s death while returning to her Today cohosting duties.
During the Friday, September 5, installment of the NBC morning show, which marked Jones’ first episode back since Ojeh’s death, she spoke to colleague Savannah Guthrie.
“In this moment, I’m OK. Day-to-day, I’m OK. From a macro picture, how am I doing? My heart is shattered in a million pieces,” Jones began. “The life that I’ve known since I was 19 is no more. I always wanted kids, and I have three kids of my own now and they lost their dad. I’m their mom, and it sucks. So, how am I doing? It’s day-to-day. I’m proud of myself for how I’ve coped so far. I’m proud of my kids for how we’ve been able to pull through, but it’s horrible.”
Jones called Ojeh’s death “a nightmare.”
“To watch a 45-year-old do triathlons and live and breathe off of soccer and his kids? To take a guy like that, and watch him have to deal with this fight was a nightmare,” she recalled. “The way he fought it and the way we rallied together and the way we saw the best of humanity was beautiful. So, it was my beautiful nightmare.”
Jones found out about Ojeh’s cancer diagnosis shortly before she ran the 2023 New York City Marathon.
“Little did I know that marathon would set me up for a real one,” Jones added. “It was ‘one foot in front of the other, one step at a time. This was so hard, I can’t take another step. Yes, you can.’ It’s, like, all those things. Who knew it was a template, a manual for what I was going to have to deal with?”
She continued, “I believed he was going to be OK. I knew it was going to be tough, but we all believed he would be fine. I got to that place where I didn’t know what tomorrow would bring. When I decided to take a leave [of absence], that was why because I didn’t know what tomorrow would bring and I was starting to feel, like, I didn’t want to miss it.”
Jones broke down in tears, reflecting on her near-18-year marriage, saying that she would “do it all over again” with the same outcome.
“[Faith] was his lifeline,” she added.
Jones initially took a leave of absence from cohosting the third hour of Today in December 2024, explaining via Instagram the following month that she was “taking time to deal with a family health matter.”
In May, Guthrie announced that Ojeh died at age 45 after privately battling brain cancer.
“With profound sadness, we share this morning that Uche Ojeh, the husband of our dear friend and Today cohost Sheinelle Jones, has passed away after a courageous battle with an aggressive form of brain cancer called glioblastoma,” Guthrie told Today viewers at the time. “There are no words for the pain that we feel for Sheinelle and their three young children. Uche was an incredible person. We all loved him.”
Jones — who married Ojeh in 2007 and shared son Kayin, 16, and twins Clara and Uche, 13, with him — briefly addressed his death in May, when she shared a clip of Guthrie’s announcement via Instagram.
“Thank you, for all of your love and support,” she wrote.
Later that month, Us Weekly shared an update on how Jones was coping with the loss.
“There is no timing on when she will be back [on Today],” a source exclusively told Us in May. “Everyone is shocked and just so sad. Everyone can’t imagine what she’s gone through. She left in December and [has] been so quiet [and] focusing on her family.”
According to the insider, “nobody knew what was going on except very select people, the top executives and main anchors.”
In the aftermath of the tragedy, Jones’ Today colleagues rallied around her.
“We tend to say, ‘Oh, I know what you’re going through. I know what you’re feeling.’ Nobody knows unless you’ve actually been in that,” Al Roker exclusively told Us in May. “So, we’re there. We just want to be there and pay tribute to the wonderful person that Uche was and still will be because he’s going to live on in those kids and live in all our memories.”
Dylan Dreyer, for her part, praised Jones for being “a bright light whenever she walks into a room, even through this,” adding that her colleague “relied on her faith” and “her friends” amid the difficult period.
“I’ve reached out. I don’t want to push too hard,” Dreyer exclusively told Us. “There’s just a lot of things that she must be juggling right now. I mean, I don’t know the right words besides, ‘I’m here. Whenever you need a hug, let me know. I’ll be there in a second.’ And, I mean, I pray for her every night.”
