“I use every bone in my body not to be googly-eyed over her and not kiss her and jump her bones all the time.”
After a year-long search following Hoda Kotb’s departure, Jenna Bush Hager finally has a new co-host for her segment of the Today Show.
On January 12, Sheinelle Jones did her first official show as a permanent co-host, with the segment being renamed Today with Jenna & Sheinelle.
Naturally, this was an emotional experience for Jones, whose feelings were only intensified by the fact that her husband, Uche Ojeh, who passed away from brain cancer last May, was not there to see it.
However, during the show, Jones shared with Bush Hager that she knew her late husband was watching over her and giving her his blessing after finding an old text from him encouraging her to go for the very co-host position she now has.
“Uche always felt like, when we were in college, ‘oh you should do a show, you should do a talk show,’” Jones explained in a clip from the show. “So when Hoda announced that she was leaving, he was really sick, and so he wasn’t talking as much, but we would text. I could talk to him and he would send me emojis and stuff like that and that would be how we talked. And so I’ll show you a picture of the text I just found from Uche from 2024. It was an article that said Hoda was going to depart and he felt it was my time to shine, to try.”
Jones then admitted that, at the time, she ignored his suggestion because her focus was on trying to fight off his cancer, not boosting her career.
“He kept trying to get back to it, and I was like ‘no, we have to save your life first,’ like, ‘I don’t wanna talk about me, I wanna talk about you,’” she said, tearing up. “And so now it just feels like confirmation because here we are two years later and he’s like, ‘Told you!’”
In the comments, fans offered their congratulations and words of encouragement to Jones as she starts this new chapter of her career.
“Sobbing 😭so happy and sad at the same time. How blessed you are to have had this love ❤️” one fan commented on the post.
“You deserve this, it’s your time and he saw it before you did❤️❤️❤️” another fan added.
