The ‘Today’ Show Reveals Jenna’s New Permanent Co-Host
Jenna Bush Hager is preparing to welcome an official new partner on Today With Jenna & Friends.
After nearly a year of rotating guest co-hosts — including Brooke Shields, Olivia Munn and Scarlett Johansson — Hager announced that Today’s own Sheinelle Jones will join her as her permanent co-host starting in the new year, per E!News.
“Today, I am so thrilled to announce I have found my forever friend, and we are going to start a brand new journey in January,” Jenna said on the Dec. 9 episode of the television show. “I couldn’t be more excited to share this person with you all. You all know her. She’s an extraordinary broadcaster, but more importantly, she exemplifies exactly what this show is all about.”
Shienelle exclaimed, “I look back at my career, and it was just like one market at a time, you know, things just kept happening. And so now to have a show like this is beyond my wildest dreams. This is the real deal, and I get to do it with Jenna.”
Jenna continued, “To get to sit next to Sheinelle, I’ve known her for a decade, but to get to fall even more in love with her will be a beautiful chapter in this show.”
For months, fans speculated that frequent guest cohosts like Matt Rogers or Regina Hall might step into the seat Hoda Kotb vacated in January. But it’s now official: Sheinelle Jones will join Jenna Bush Hager on the newly renamed Today with Jenna & Sheinelle starting Jan. 12.
Sheinelle, 47, has been part of the Today family since October 2014, when she became a coanchor of Weekend Today. She later joined the Third Hour in 2019. Recently, she stepped away from the show for nearly nine months to focus on her family while her husband, Uche Ojeh, battled brain cancer. After his passing in May, she returned to the studio and described colleagues Savannah Guthrie, Craig Melvin, Al Roker, Dylan Dreyer, and Jenna Bush Hager as her “family.”
The feeling was mutual — Savannah welcomed her back with a heartfelt message, saying Studio 1A felt complete again. Sheinelle, who shares three children with Uche — son Kayin, 16, and twins Clara and Uche, 13 — is now stepping into her next chapter with Jenna by her side.
