Sheinelle Jones Breaks Her Silence After Her Husband Uche Ojeh’s Death from Brain Cancer

Sheinelle Jones is reflecting on her life without late husband Uche Ojeh, four months after his death.

The Today show co-host, whose husband died after he was diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer called glioblastoma, returned to the NBC morning show on Friday, Sept. 5 after taking an extended leave of absence in late 2024.

To mark the return, initially announced by Savannah Guthrie on Monday, Sept. 1, Jones took part in a pre-taped interview alongside her colleague — marking her first time publicly speaking out about the loss.

“My heart is shattered in a million pieces,” Jones shared. “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.”

The mother of three said she takes her pain “day to day,” but added, “It’s horrible. It’s just horrible.”

She recalled her time in the hospital with Ojeh, saying, “And we would just hold hands and the nurses would come in and they’re 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. And trust me, it is a nightmare to watch a 45-year-old do two triathlons and live and breathe off of soccer as 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.”

Jones revealed that she knew about her husband’s diagnosis for more than a year before she took a leave of absence from Today. She made it clear that she wasn’t “faking” her happiness on the show.

“I thought, ‘I’m not faking it. My joy is real.’ I was on television for almost a year with this,” she shared. “I would do the show and then hop in the car and go be with him during chemo.”

From the start, Jones said she thought her husband would pull through.

“I believed that he was going to be okay. I knew it was gonna be tough, but we all believed that he would be fine,” she said.

She added that the experience has changed her attitude toward how she grieves.

“I don’t run away from crying anymore when it comes to grief,” she said. “I see it as, ‘Okay, here comes my cleansing rain. And it’s okay.’ ”

As she moves forward, Jones is following in her late husband’s footsteps with how she chooses to handle his loss.

“I watched him in his toughest moments, his faith is what gave him peace,” Jones shared. “So I think, ‘Okay, if Uche can have faith, when his life is on the line, surely I can and surely we all can.’ ”

Returning to Today was intentional on Jones’ part, as she wants to serve as an inspiration to others in similar situations.

“Cancer doesn’t have to steal our joy. We can get up, we can get out of bed, and we can go to work, we can go to school, we can squeeze the most out of the days that we have. And honestly, I feel like Uche’s heartbeat lives on in mine,” she said. “So I owe it to him to just squeeze the most I can out of this thing.”

“We can grieve but we can also still try to move forward. We don’t move on, but we move forward with our loved ones. And I hope that just by me being on the set and me returning to work, it’s like, ‘Okay, if I can do it, so can you,’ ” she continued.

She asked viewers to look at her through a different lens, adding, “If you see me now and you see me laughing, or you turn on the morning show and I’m laughing or having a good time, you root for me because I’m fighting for my joy.”

Following the emotional pre-taped interview, Jones rejoined her Today co-workers on the couch, thanking them for their love and support, calling them her “oxygen” during this heartbreaking time.

After her Today show co-hosts shared the news of Ojeh’s death on May 23, Jones, 47, posted a clip of the segment on her Instagram and wrote, “Thank you, for all your love and support,” but had not spoken out further about the loss.

She and Ujeh, who was 45, had been married nearly two decades, and share three kids: Kayin, 15, and twins Clara and Uche, 12.

Jones’ friends and several Today alums flooded her May 23 post with love in the comments section, as Hoda Kotb wrote, “Holding you and your babies Sheinelle 🙏.”

Tamron Hall, who left Today in 2017, also commented. “Sheinelle our prayers and love are with you and your family,” she wrote.

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

Today alum Katie Couric shared a post of her own in tribute to Jones and Ojeh as she said she was “sending so much love, support and sympathy” to her.

“My heart is breaking for her and their three children. Please hold them in your hearts,” she wrote. “Love you Sheinelle 💔.”

Prior to the news of Ojeh’s diagnosis, Jones’ co-host Dylan Dreyer told Entertainment Tonight, “We chat with her often. A week doesn’t go by where we’re not checking in, seeing how she’s doing.”