“Today”’s Sheinelle Jones calls first Mother’s Day without late husband ‘brutal,’ but found ‘silver lining’ in kids

Key Points

• Sheinelle Jones is reflecting on her first Mother’s Day since her husband Uche Ojeh died in May 2025.

• The Today With Jenna & Sheinelle host said she realized she was “going to be okay” amid her children’s busy schedules doing what they love and being able to cheer them on.

• Jones concluded, saying she “stuck the landing” thanks to her children, Kayin, Clara, and Uche.

Sheinelle Jones is opening up about her first Mother’s Day since her husband Uche Ojeh’s death.

During Monday’s episode of Today With Jenna & Sheinelle, Jones told cohost Jenna Bush Hager about how Mother’s Day was “tough” for her this year after losing her husband of 18 years in May 2025 after he was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer. Jones and Ojeh shared son Kayin and twins Clara and Uche.

“I think when you have ‘firsts’ — and Mother’s Day was a ‘first’ for me since Uche passed — you fortify your heart, right? Christmas and Easter, you kind of fortify yourself. But there are some holidays that you don’t see coming, that are harder than you think,” Jones began. Hager asked if Mother’s Day was one of them, in response to which Jones called it “brutal.”

Jones and Hager pointed out that Jones’ husband was the one to do “everything,” like rallying their kids to get a card together. “So I realized, ‘Oh, we don’t have that.’ I think we all quietly realized it.”

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The morning show host then brought up that the “silver lining” of the day came from the whirlwind of activities involving her kids. “My little guy had a game at 9 a.m., Kayin had a game at 7 p.m., Clara had dance. So it was like, I couldn’t stay in bed. And then watching Clara dance, and my little guy’s been injured but it was his first game back and watching Kayin playing on the higher team, I was like, okay. It’s going to be okay.”

Hager noted that it was “so ironic” that Jones found joy in her kids, adding that “watching them and being proud of them… is what Mother’s Day really should be about.” Jones concluded that she “stuck the landing” of her first year celebrating the holiday without her husband.

Jones took an extended leave of absence from Today in late 2024 and 2025. Before her return, she participated in a pre-taped interview with colleague Savannah Guthrie, which aired in September, about the loss.

“My heart is shattered in a million pieces,” Jones said at the time. “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 called the situation a “beautiful nightmare.”

She elaborated on that characterization, reflecting on Uche’s time in the hospital. “We would just hold hands, and the nurses would come in and they’d call us the ‘love birds,’ and we’d just look at each other and say, ‘I love you’… that’s what I mean by ‘beautiful nightmare,’ because I found beauty in the nightmare,” Jones said.

“And trust me, it is a nightmare to watch a 45-year-old do two 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. But the way he fought it and the way we rallied together and the way we saw the best of humanity, that was beautiful.”

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