The “Today” Show is like a family. And when one member needs help, the others rush in.
So after Sheinelle Jones’ husband, Uche Ojeh, was diagnosed in the fall of 2023 with glioblastoma, a form of brain cancer that took his life in May of last year, Savannah Guthrie was there for her.
And when Guthrie’s mom, Nancy, vanished from her Arizona home on February 1, the “Today” family were ready to support the “Today” co-anchor in anything she needed.
“We’re going to rally around our sister,” Jones, 48, told Page Six this week. “She rallied around me. We know how to do that here.”
Rather than panic, Jones, who is the mom of sons Kayin, 16, and Uche Jr., 13, as well as daughter Clara, 13, said she found herself focused on supporting Savannah the same way colleagues had supported her.
She recalled in an earlier interview how Savannah jumped in.
“There was one day Savannah came up to the hospital and she said, ‘You need to get out of here … ‘”
“We went to this little restaurant around the corner from the hospital and had margaritas, and I said, ‘You were my oxygen for the day, and sometimes I never know where my oxygen’s going to come from.’”
Bush Hager told Page Six this week: “[Savannah’s] heart is broken and we love her.”
The shocking news of Nancy’s disappearance came just two weeks after the premiere of “Jenna & Sheinelle,” aka the fourth hour of “Today.”
Jones acknowledged that launching a new show during such an emotional period changed the way she approached the job.
However, it’s now going gangbusters in the ratings — up 30% in the last year.
“In any other matrix, it would’ve just been about us and the show,” Jones said. “But we didn’t have time for that. I didn’t have time to worry about my hair or whether I was being funny. Real life was happening.”
She believes those circumstances ultimately strengthened her partnership with Bush Hager.
“It continues to bond us in ways we can’t even describe or make sense of,” she said.
While Hoda Kotb, who left “Today” in 2025, temporarily returned to the show’s news desk alongside Craig Melvin to help cover developments in the case, Bush Hager and Jones often found themselves discussing the emotional impact of Savannah’s absence.
“What’s beautiful about our hour is that you can’t fake it,” said Bush Hager, 44. “We don’t have the news to fall back on. Our conversations have to be emotional and connected to what we’re actually going through.”
She said it would have felt dishonest not to acknowledge what was happening.
“Every day we were thinking about her,” Bush Hager said. “How could we not talk about it? It was what was happening off camera.”
The pair made a conscious effort not to pretend everything was normal.
“We’re not going to act like things are OK if they’re not,” Bush Hager said. “We’re bringing ourselves to the audience. It was a really hard time because we adore her so much, and it still is.”
Bush Hager said that her father, former President George W. Bush, often teases her about how close the “Today” team has become.
“He’ll say, ‘How’s the family?’” she said. “We understand how lucky we are to work at a place where people really care about each other. If our sister’s heart is broken, ours is too.”
Asked whether Savannah’s situation has made them worry more about their own safety and their families, Bush Hager immediately dismissed the notion.
“No, because we’re worried about one person only,” she said. “When Sheinelle was going through what she was going through, we weren’t thinking, ‘What if this happened to us?’ We were worried about our sister. [It was,] ‘Who has the kids? Can we send food? How can we help?’”
Jones officially joined Bush Hager on January 12, stepping into Kotb’s former role after the show had a year of guests filling the seat.
When it came to hiring a permanent co-host, there was never doubt in Bush Hager’s mind.
“I always wanted Sheinelle,” she said. “But I was waiting because she was going through something very personal.”
The two aren’t shy about asking each other for support. During Jones’ recent nationwide book tour promoting her book “Through Mom’s Eyes,” Bush Hager frequently stepped in to help.
Jones compared their partnership to “dating live on air” and joked that the experience often feels like free therapy.
“We’re learning to fly a plane while we’re flying it,” Bush Hager, who grew up in Texas when her family wasn’t in the White House, added.
“We’re two women with a lot in common, and I think viewers connect with that,” Jones, originally from Wichita, Kansas, said. “I’m black, she’s white, but we’re both from places we love. We both had Dillard’s [department store] where we used to get our bras when we were kids!”
The pair’s ratings have surged, up 30% from this time last year, as viewers tune in for everything from candid conversations about perimenopause to lighter moments like sampling this summer’s frozen Hugo spritz.
And the show just posted its strongest May audience share in four years, outperforming key competitors and delivering one of daytime television’s fastest growth rates.
Yet Bush Hager said ratings are rarely discussed with talent.
“I’ve only had a handful of conversations about ratings,” she explained. “Nobody comes in and says, ‘Ratings are bad.’ [The producers’] job is to hire people who can connect with viewers, and that’s that.”
Bush Hager, who shares Mila, 13, Poppy, 10, and Hal, 6, with husband Henry Hager, a managing director at a private equity fund, is looking forward to a quieter summer after a hectic stretch that included interviews with her dad, Queen Camilla, Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Bill Clinton, as well as a cameo in “The Devil Wears Prada 2.”
Now, “I’m looking forward to a chill summer, man.”
But she’s busy beyond television — running a national book club and publishing books through her media company Thousand Voices. She also has a deal with Universal Studios Group to adapt books for television.
“You have to decide what lights your fire and create a world around that,” Busy Hager said. “The sixth-grade version of me, who was obsessed with [novelist] Ann Patchett, would never believe that now I can text her and ask for book recommendations.
“All these little dreams I had as a kid are coming true,” she added. “You can create meaningful work around the things you’re obsessed with.”
For Jones, the atmosphere on their NBC set feels almost spiritual.
“When I sit down, I don’t have to worry,” she said. “I think the good lord does what He does.”
That faith that has kept both her and Savannah going, even as Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance remains unsolved and a reward of $1 million is now being offered for information leading to her return.
“We are both pretty spiritual, and she talked about the story in the Bible about manna from heaven, and she said, ‘You may not know when you’re going to get it, but I believe you’re going to get a little bit of manna every day,’” Jones previously told Page Six.
“And you wake up in the morning, and you’re going to feel like you can’t get out of bed, but just know somehow you’re going to get a little manna every day. And that has been true every single day.”
Before Jones officially accepted her role alongside Bush Hager, it was Kotb who offered some memorable advice.
“She told me it would be one of the greatest decisions I ever made,” Jones recalled.
Months later, she knows Kotb was right.
“I love being able to sit down, not know exactly where we’re going to go, and have the freedom to figure it out together,” she said.
Turning to Bush Hager, she added: “I know that if I go this way or that way, you’re not going to let me fall on my face.”
