See Hoda Kotb and Kathie Lee Gifford Return to Today Show for Special Reunion

“First of all, you invented the genre, you really did,” Sheinelle said. “I used to watch and I used to say I was a news girl and I'm like, ‘I don't know if I can do that.’”

The 47-year-old added to Kathie Lee, “When I got the job, [I said to you], ‘Just so you know, I see you, and I know you were a trailblazer in the genre.’ And you were like, ‘Oh, I know.’”

In addition to laughter, the crew took time to share sweet words with one another, too.

“This is learning, by the way, at the seat of the master,” Hoda said, pointing to Kathie Lee. “This is how it works. I learned from this girl, and then I was scared to go off on my own, and then I met this girl [Jenna], and I was so proud the day you walked out—I'll never forget it. And now you are welcoming this girl.”

While Jenna held back tears, she thanked Hoda and Kathie Lee, adding, “Well, y'all built the institution, and we love both of you. You’ve been so generous.”

Now that Hoda and Kathie Lee have passed the torch to Sheinelle, read on to learn more about the journalist, including a look back at her romance with Uche.

Born in Philadelphia, Sheinelle Jones can track her love of words and storytelling back to her childhood in Wichita, Kan. "I grew up surrounded by the power of intentionality," she explained in a 2024 interview with her alma mater's Northwestern Magazine of mom Sheila Kinnard's habit of leaving affirmations all around their home. "There were quotes in my bathroom when I was in eighth grade, [like] 'If you can see it, you can be it.'"

So she saw, and she did. A high school cheerleader, clarinetist and student council member, Jones covered her bedroom walls with photos of Janet Jackson and news anchors, including local KWCH 12 legend Cindy Klose.

Determined to be a news reporter, Jones scored an internship at a nearby CBS affiliate through her grandmother's friend from church.

From there, surrounded by motivational quotes, she explained when speaking at the 2018 convocation for Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism, "I visualized myself in a black-and-white glossy headshot right along with those anchors on my wall until, essentially, it became my reality."

On her grind from the moment she stepped onto Northwestern's Chicago-area campus, Jones interned at an NBC affiliate in Wichita, then cold-called BET Networks until they agreed to give her an unpaid summer internship. (She slept on her older sister's couch in Washington, D.C., working at clothing store Rainbow to make money.)

Armed with the knowledge from her journalism courses, Spanish studies and articulation classes, Jones worked at an NBC affiliate in Springfield, Ill. and then a job as an evening news anchor and reporter at a Fox station in Tulsa, Okla.

Next came a nine-year stint at Fox's Emmy-winning Good Day Philadelphia before Jones—one of five children born to Kinnard and U.S. District Court Judge C. Darnell Jones II—joined Weekend Today in 2014, becoming co-host of Today's third hour in 2019 before claiming the seat next to Jenna Bush Hager on the newly minted Today with Jenna & Sheinelle.

Quietly stepping away from the desk she shared with cohosts Craig Melvin and Savannah Guthrie in December 2024, the mom to Kayin and twins Clara and Uche addressed her absence in a January 2025 Instagram post.

"I'm taking time to deal with a family health matter," Jones wrote. "It's not lost on [me] how lucky I am to have not only the support of my Today Show family, but to also have all of you. Your kindness means so much to me."

But it wasn't until that May when viewers got a full understanding of the battle Jones had been facing. With "profound sadness," Guthrie announced that Jones' husband of 17 years, Uche Ojeh, had "passed away after a courageous battle with an aggressive form of brain cancer called glioblastoma."

As Jones now works through her profound grief, she's used it to teach her children not to be scared of expressing emotions. "What I’ve told my kids, it’s almost like rain can't last forever," she explained when returning to Today in September 2025. “So when the rain comes, in some ways, I’ve just learned to look up at the rain and let it clear the air. I don’t run away from crying anymore. When it comes to grief, I see it as, 'Here comes my cleansing rain.' And it’s OK. So when it comes now, I’m like, 'OK, you can come. We can sit for a little bit.'"

The same ingenuity that guided Jones' career had her thinking fast when she first spied her future husband. "I was a fake tour guide," she recounted to Northwestern Magazine of leading the then-high school senior through the lakeside campus. Though she was en route to class, "I told him I would take him around because he was cute."

From there, they mapped out a decades-long journey. After eight years of dating and two false starts (she previously thought he was proposing when he gifted her a Tiffany's box with a bracelet inside and then again on a trip to Cancun), the couple found themselves back at the beginning.

"We were on a trip to Northwestern’s campus," Jones recounted on Today in 2018. "It was raining outside, and he was like, ‘Let’s go over by our little spot on the lake.'" Though she was hesitant to get wet, he convinced her to let the rain fall down, then dropped to one knee.

She and the Nigerian-born consultant—a managing partner at UAO Consulting and an avid triathlete—wed in her native Philadelphia in September 2007, going on to welcome son Kayin in August 2009 and twins Clara and Uche in July 2012.

"With all three of my children, I try to show them that they’re ALL a team," she's told Today, "and they have to take care of each other."

In her third week back at Today, Jones took her first spin in the Jenna & Friends chair. Hager surprised her longtime friend with what she dubbed "The Secret Society of Sheinelle"—six of the journalist's closest friends that she said "put me back together."

One of 60 guests who sat beside Hager in the year since Hoda Kotb signed off, Jones told Hager, "Hopefully this will be a date where you walk away and go, ‘OK, hopefully she calls me tomorrow!'"

Before making her Dec. 8 debut, Jones slipped into one of her husband's old shirts and celebrated with their three kids. "I said a little prayer," Jones recounted, "and I'm like, 'Let's go be with not my friend, but my sister.'" Agreed Hager, "There's nobody I would rather sit next to."

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