Beloved TODAY Show host Sheinelle Jones is finally back on the popular morning after a months long hiatus. And now, she’s speaking out about her absence and the sad, personal incident that prompted it in the first place.
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If you’ll remember, Jones shocked fans when she shared earlier in the year that she’d be taking some time away from her duties at the show to deal with “a family health matter.” As we told you in May, the mystery of the family health matter was sadly revealed on air when Jones’ cohosts revealed that her husband Uche Ojeh passed away after “a courageous battle with an aggressive form of brain cancer called glioblastoma.” Jones and Ojeh had been married since 2007 and shared three children together.
Fast forward to September and Jones is opening up about her late husband and how she and her kids have been doing since his passing.
Describing it as a “beautiful nightmare” on Friday morning’s episode of the TODAY Show, Jones said: “It’s a beautiful nightmare. My heart is shattered in a million pieces. The life that I’ve known since I was 19 is no more. I’ve always wanted kids and I have three kids of my own now and they’ve lost their dad. And I’m their mom. It sucks.”
She went on to explain how she and Ojeh were glued to each other’s hip even in the early stages of their relationship and that trend came full-circle as they held onto each other even closer as the latter was battling cancer.
“It felt scary. It felt divine. It felt bigger than us. But at the end of the day, when we shut the door and it was just us, that was always when we felt like we were at our best. And my 19-year-old self did it, and then my 47-year-old self was doing it again,” Jones said. “We would just hold hands, and the nurses would come in, and they would call us the lovebirds. And we would just look at each other, say ‘I love you,’ and hold hands. But that’s what I mean by beautiful nightmare.”
Speaking to her decision to ultimately pull back from the show so she could be at her husband’s side, Jones explained that while she wanted to be strong and took care of Ojeh privately for a year–she knew at a certain point, it was better to take a step back to really be present for his fight.
Saying how she felt like she was his “oxygen” at times, Jones said: “I didn’t want to be so strong that I missed this blessing right in front of me– that I missed the fight, that I missed the beauty in the fight. That I missed just looking in his eyes. Because I was his oxygen sometimes. I would just [whisper], ‘I love you. We’re going to be OK. I love you. Look at me. I’m here.’”
After the segment aired, Jones walked out on the stage to sit beside her cohosts and said that she’d gotten all her tears out the day before so she could be present.
“I did all my cries yesterday so that today I could just be fully present and try to receive the love and not be a ball of tears here…I tried to fortify myself, and I’ll cry later,” she said.
She also shared that while she’s still fighting for her joy, she would choose her love and marriage to Ojeh “all over again” despite its tragic ending.
Watch Jones’ full interview below.
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