A year after Hoda Kotb left NBC‘s Today show, the morning program has finally found her successor for the fourth hour, alongside Jenna Bush Hager.
Sheinelle Jones will join Bush Hager as the permanent co-host of the hour, which will be renamed Today with Jenna and Sheinelle, beginning Jan. 12. Jones will appear on the program Tuesday morning to reveal the news.
Bush Hager had been hosting the program alongside a rotating cast of co-hosts for the last year following Kotb’s exit. Craig Melvin succeeded Kotb in the lead anchor chair alongside Savannah Guthrie.
Jones had been absent from the show for much of the year, as her husband Uche Ojeh battled brain cancer. Ojeh passed away in March at age 45. She returned in September where she discussed losing her husband, and how it changed her family.
Jones has been with the Today show for more than a decade, joining the morning program’s weekend edition in 2014. In 2019, Jones was named co-host of the show’s third hour. She will leave that hour to join Bush Hager in the fourth hour.
Bush Hager joined NBC News in 2009, and established herself as a critical piece of the Today show ensemble.