Category: TV

Sheinelle Jones will be the new co-host of what is currently Jenna & Friends.

The Today regular has landed the coveted second seat on the popular 10am talk show, hosted by nepo baby Jenna Bush Hager, according to Variety.

Insiders at the network said Jones will step-in as co-host on January 12, and will most likely keep her gig as a Today contributor.

The choice is an example of the tight race for ratings in the 10 a.m. hour.  The show will go up against the popular Live” with  Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos, and Drew Barrymore on CBS.

NBC has reported been urging the Today  hosts to be looser with their colleagues in the early morning hours in order to compete with popular podcasts such as Alex Cooper’s Call Her Daddy and a myriad of TikTok influencers offering their own advice and inspiration.

Jones joined Today in October 2014, as part of Weekend Today.  In January 2019, she became a co-host on 3rd Hour Today, and a co-anchor on the Saturday editions of Weekend Today, working six days a week. In December 2019, she exited Weekend Today.

 In February 2020, Jones had surgery to remove lesions from her vocal cord and thus could not speak at all for two weeks; she remained out of work for six weeks. In 2021, she was the executive producer for a documentary entitled Stories We Tell: The Fertility Secret, which examined the impact of fertility issues on women of color.