{"id":340047,"date":"2025-12-10T01:05:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T01:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/340047\/"},"modified":"2025-12-10T01:05:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T01:05:09","slug":"jenna-bush-hagers-today-co-anchor-announced-11-months-after-hoda-kotbs-departure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/340047\/","title":{"rendered":"Jenna Bush Hager\u2019s Today co-anchor announced 11 months after Hoda Kotb\u2019s departure"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jenna Bush Hager\u2019s new Today show co-anchor has been announced a year after Hoda Kotb left the show<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sheinelle Jones<\/a> will join Hager as her permanent co-host starting January 12 on the 10 a.m. show, now called Today with Jenna & Sheinelle.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday I am so thrilled to announce that I found my forever friend and we are going to start a brand new journey in January,\u201d Hager said through tears during Tuesday\u2019s live show<\/a>. \u201cI couldn\u2019t be more excited to share this person with you all. You all know her, she\u2019s an extraordinary broadcaster. But more importantly, she exemplifies exactly what this show is all about.”<\/p>\n

Jones, 47, said in a pre-recorded segment: \u201cI don\u2019t know whether to laugh or cry or scream.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new co-anchor, who was also in tears, joined Hager on stage Tuesday and reflected on her departure from Today <\/a>earlier this year due to the death of her husband.<\/p>\n

\"Sheinelle<\/p>\n

Sheinelle Jones will join Jenna Bush Hager as her new co-anchor (Today\/NBC)<\/p>\n

\"Sheinelle<\/p>\n

Sheinelle Jones is the first permanent co-host to replace Hoda Kotb’s spot on the ‘Today’ show with Jenna Bush Hager (Getty Images for The Hudson River)<\/p>\n

\u201cYou could not write this script,\u201d Jones said. \u201cWhen I came back from leave<\/a>, I talked about fighting for your joy \u2014 this is what that looks like.\u201d<\/p>\n

She added that it feels as though the massive career move was orchestrated by her late husband, Uche Ojeh, who died in May<\/a> at age 45 from an aggressive form of brain cancer. The couple shared four children.<\/p>\n

Jones added that Kotb<\/a> called her Monday night and gave her 45 seconds of \u201cwisdom that changed me\u201d and told her this was the \u201cbest decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to be better than you could ever imagine,\u201d Kotb told her. The longtime anchor left the show<\/a> in January after spending 26 years with NBC.<\/p>\n

Craig Melvin was announced as Kotb\u2019s replacement for her co-anchor position on the desk<\/a>, but Hager spent the last year hosting the network\u2019s flagship morning show with celebrity guests including Scarlett Johansson, Michelle Obama, and Andy Cohen.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis marks an exciting new chapter for the fourth hour,\u201d Today executive vice president Libby Leist and Jenna & Friends executive producer Talia Parkinson-Jones said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cJenna and Sheinelle are two extraordinary talents who have grown within the ranks of Today. They are beloved for their authenticity, warmth and genuine connection with our Today audience.”<\/p>\n

Jones<\/a> joined Weekend Today in 2014 and became a co-host for the show\u2019s third hour in 2019.<\/p>\n

While the anchor will step away from the 9 a.m. show to join Jenna & Sheinelle, co-hosts Melvin, Al Roker, and Dylan Dreyer will stay on the third hour of the show<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jenna Bush Hager\u2019s new Today show co-anchor has been announced a year after Hoda Kotb left the show.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":340048,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[236,88,64883,27642,81150,1256],"class_list":{"0":"post-340047","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-hoda-kotb","11":"tag-jenna-bush-hager","12":"tag-sheinelle-jones","13":"tag-today-show"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/340048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}