The “Today” show is like a family. And when one member needs help, others jump in.
So after Sheinelle Jones’ husband, Uche Ojie, was diagnosed with glioblastoma, a type of brain tumor, in the fall of 2023 and took his life last May, Savannah Guthrie stood by her side.
And when Guthrie’s mother, Nancy, disappeared from her Arizona home on Feb. 1, the “Today” family was ready to support whatever the “Today” co-anchor 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 it here.”
Jones, who is also the mother of sons Cain, 16, and Uche Jr., 13, and daughter Clara, 13, said that rather than panicking, she found herself focusing on supporting Savannah in the same way her colleagues had supported her.
She recalled in a previous interview how Savannah jumped in.
“Savannah came to the hospital one day and said, ‘I have 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 that day. Sometimes I don’t know where my oxygen is coming from.’
“(Savannah’s) heart is broken, but we love her,” Bush Hager told Page Six this week.
The shocking news of Nancy’s disappearance was broken just two weeks after the premiere of “Jenna and Sheinelle,” also known as “Today,” during the fourth hour.
Jones admitted that launching the new show at such an emotional time has changed the way he approaches work.
But viewership is now skyrocketing, up 30% last year.
“In any other Matrix, it would have just been about us and the show,” Jones said. “But we didn’t have time for that. We didn’t have time to worry about our hair or worry about whether we looked weird. Real life was happening.”
She believes these circumstances ultimately strengthened her partnership with Bush-Hager.
“It continues to connect us in ways we can’t explain or even understand,” she said.
Hoda Kotb, who left Today in 2025, briefly returned to the show’s news desk alongside Craig Melvin to cover developments, but Bush Hager and Jones often discussed the emotional impact of Savannah’s absence.
“The great thing about our time is that we can’t cheat,” said Bush Hager, 44. “We don’t have news to rely on. Our conversations have to be emotional and relevant to what we’re actually experiencing.”
She said it would have felt disingenuous not to acknowledge what was happening.
“We thought about her every day,” Bush Hager said. “How could we not talk about it? It was happening off camera.”
They both made a conscious effort not to pretend that everything was normal.
“We’re not going to act like it’s okay when things don’t go well,” Bush Hager said. “We’re bringing ourselves to the audience. It was a really tough time, and it still is, because we love her so much.”
Bush Hager said her father, former President George W. Bush, often teases her about how close the Today team has become.
“He’ll say, ‘What about your family?'” she says. “We know how lucky we are to work in a workplace where people truly care about each other. If our sister’s heart is broken, our hearts are broken too.”
When asked if the situation on Savannah made them even more worried about their safety or that of their families, Bush Hager quickly dismissed that idea.
“No, because we’re only worried about one person,” 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 I send food? How can I help? ”
Jones officially joined Bush Hager on January 12, filling Kotb’s previous role after the show had filled the seats with guests for a year.
There was no doubt in Bush Hager’s mind when it came to hiring a permanent co-host.
“I always wanted a Sheinelle,” she said. “But I waited because she was going through something very personal.”
The two aren’t shy about asking each other for support. During Jones’ recent national book tour to promote her book, “Through Mama’s Eyes,” Bush Hager frequently stepped in to help.
Jones likened their partnership to “dating on live TV,” joking that the experience often felt like free therapy.
“We’re learning to fly the plane while we’re flying it,” added Bush Hager, who grew up in Texas when her family was not in the White House.
“We’re two women who have a lot in common, and I think viewers can relate to that,” said Jones, who is from Wichita, Kansas. “I’m black and she’s white, but we both come from places that we love. There’s a Dillard’s (department store) for both of us, and we used to buy bras there when we were kids!”
The pair’s ratings have increased 30% since this time last year, as viewers tune in to everything from candid conversations about perimenopause to lighter moments like sampling this summer’s frozen Hugo Spritz.
And the show just posted its highest May audience share in four years, outpacing its major competitors and showing the highest growth rate in daytime television.
But Bush Hager said he rarely discusses ratings with talent.
“I’ve only talked about ratings a handful of times,” she explained. “Nobody comes in and says, ‘The ratings are bad.’ (The producer’s) job is to hire people who can connect with the audience, and that’s it.”
Bush Hager, who has three children, Mila, 13, Poppy, 10, and Hal, six, with husband Henry Hager, a managing director at a private equity fund, is looking forward to a quiet summer after a busy day that included interviews with her father Queen Camilla, Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Bill Clinton, and a cameo in The Devil Wears Prada 2.
Now, “I’m looking forward to a cold summer.”
But she stays 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 build your world around it,” Busy Hager said. “As a sixth-grader obsessed with[novelist]Ann Patchett, I can’t believe I can now email her and ask her for book recommendations.
“All the little dreams I had as a child are coming true,” she added. “You can create meaningful work around what you’re passionate about.”
For Jones, the atmosphere on the NBC set feels almost sacred.
“When you’re sitting, you don’t have to worry,” she said. “I think the good Lord does what He does.”
That faith has sustained both her and Savannah, even though Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance remains unsolved and there is currently a $1 million reward for information leading to her return.
“We’re both pretty spiritual people, and she told me about the story of manna from heaven in the Bible, and she said, ‘I don’t know when I’m going to get it, but I believe we can get a little bit of manna every day,'” Jones previously told Page Six.
“And when you wake up in the morning, you’ll feel like you can’t get out of bed. But just know that somehow every day you get a little bit of mana. And that was true every day.”
Before Jones officially accepted to work with Bush Hager, Kotb offered some memorable advice.
“She told me this was going to be one of the biggest decisions I’d ever made,” Jones recalls.
Months later, she learned that Kotb was right.
“I love that we have the freedom to sit down and think together, even if we don’t know exactly where we’re going,” she said.
Turning to Bush Hager, she added: “I know you’re not going to bow down to me if I go this way or that way.”
