The Today show family has Sheinelle Jones’ back as she and her family mourn the unexpected death of her husband, Uche Ojeh.
“She’s such a close friend to me and I still don’t have the words. I don’t know what to say,” Dylan Dreyer exclusively told Us Weekly at Hoda Kotb’s Joy 101 launch event in New York City on Wednesday, May 28. “I’ve reached out. I don’t want to push too hard. There’s just a lot of things that she must be juggling right now. I mean, I don’t know the right words besides, ‘I’m here. Whenever you need a hug, let me know. I’ll be there in a second.’ And, I mean, I pray for every night.”
Al Roker went on to add, “We tend to say, ‘Oh, I know what you’re going through. I know what you’re feeling.’ Nobody knows unless you’ve actually been in that. So, we’re there. We just want to be there and pay tribute to the wonderful person that Uche was and still will be because he’s going to live on in those kids and live in all our memories.”
Jones has been absent from role as a cohost of the third hour of Today since December 2024, revealing via Instagram the following month that she was taking time off to deal with a “family health matter.” On Friday, May 23, Savannah Guthrie announced on Today that Ojeh had died at age 45 after privately battling the “aggressive form of brain cancer” glioblastoma.
“There are no words for the pain that we feel for Sheinelle and their three young children. Uche was an incredible person. We all loved him,” she said on the NBC morning show. (Jones and Uche shared son Kayin, 15, and twin Clara and Uche, 12.)
Dreyer, 43, described Ojeh as a “special guy” while chatting with Us on Wednesday, adding, “I’m so blessed to have gotten to know him.”
On a lighthearted note, Roker, 70, joked that he had a “man candy crush” on Ojeh. “There was one point where he was training for a triathlon and he had this kind of three-quarter wetsuit on, and I thought, ‘Oh, my God, it’s the prince of Wakanda,’” he told Us. “I said it out loud. I rarely say things that I don’t [mean]. If I wouldn’t say them out loud, then I don’t say them.”
Jones’ Today colleagues all paid tribute to her late husband during Friday’s episode, with Roker remembering Ojeh as a “private” but “wickedly funny” and “humble” guy. Dreyer, for her part, noted that Jones was “always smiling” through her family’s difficult time.
Jones broke her silence on Ojeh’s death by sharing a clip of her colleagues’ on-air tributes via Instagram. “Thank you, for all of your love and support ❤️,” she captioned the Friday post.
Earlier this week, a source exclusively told Us that “there is no timing” on when Jones will return to Today. “Everyone is shocked and just so sad. Everyone can’t imagine what she’s gone through. She left in December and [has] been so quiet [and] focusing on her family,” the insider added.
The source also revealed that “nobody knew what was going on except very select people, the top executives and the main anchors.”
As the Today hosts continue to support Jones, they also showed their love for Kotb, 60, at Wednesday’s Joy 101 launch event. The wellness company marks Kotb’s first major project since leaving Today earlier this year.
“She’s found her place. We are so thrilled for her,” Roker told Us, while Dreyer joked that Kotb is “too happy” to consider returning to Today.
