It’s a new day today at TODAY.
On Monday, January 12, 2026, Sheinelle Jones officially made her debut as Jenna Bush Hager’s co-host for TODAY’s 4th Hour.
The welcome addition comes six years after she first joined TODAY’s 3rd Hour, which she hosted alongside Dylan Dreyer, Al Roker, and Craig Melvin, and one year after 4th Hour with Hoda & Jenna became TODAY with Jenna & Friends following Hoda Kotb’s departure from the long-running program.
On their very first day as co-anchors, the show started with a clip of Jenna, through tears, announcing Sheinelle as her co-host back in December, along with clips of the two hosting together in recent months. It was followed by candid, vlog style videos of them heading into NBC studios this morning.
As soon as the new co-hosts sat down, they began discussing their new intro jingle, and Sheinelle was brought to tears when she told Jenna that when she first showed her the jingle, Jenna did the very same head-shaking dance that Sheinelle’s grandmother would do when they were listening to music in the car when she was growing up in Wichita, Kansas.
The tears, and meaningful signs, continued when Sheinelle revealed her late husband Uche Ojeh’s reaction to when Hoda first announced she would be departing NBC back in September 2024. At the time, Sheinelle further revealed, Uche was already quite sick, often not talking much, and they had taken to occasionally communicating on text via emojis.
© TODAYSheinelle recalled how even back in college, Uche would always suggest that Sheinelle was destined to be a talk show host, which she refuted. Still, now admitting he was right, she went on to show the texts she received from him when Hoda announced her exit, a string of emojis, hinting that her time as a lead co-host had come.
Sheinelle’s new gig comes around eight months after Uche’s passing. He died in May aged 45 after a battle with glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer.
Sheinelle and Uche were college sweethearts, married since 2007, and welcomed three children together, son Kayin, 16, and twins Clara and Uche, who are 13 years old.
© NBCThe couple met when she was a freshman at Northwestern University, and Uche was a visiting high school senior touring the school. Recalling the moment while speaking with Northwestern’s campus magazine in 2024, she said: “I was a fake tour guide … I was just walking to class.”
© NBC“[I was like, ‘Are you guys lost?’ And] I told him I would take him around because he was cute. I was like, ‘This is the Black House. … This is the Plex (aka Foster-Walker Complex), and if you need real tidbits, I’m probably not the one,'” she added.
The two graduated a year apart, and after eight years of doing long distance, Uche proposed along the Northwestern lakefront.
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