Today show anchor Craig Melvin has been offering lots of encouragement to his “big sister” and former cohost Sheinelle Jones as she mourns the loss of her husband, Uche Ojeh, who died in May.
Melvin, 46, exclusively told Us Weekly about an uplifting recent conversation he had with Jones, 48, prior to her September 5 return to Today.
“I said to her a few months ago, I was like, ‘God doesn’t give us more than we can bear. You got this,’” Melvin recalled to Us. “You coming back to work sends a message to all of those folks who watch and listen to us every day that grief is a process, but at the end of the day, you have to put one foot in front of the other, and you have to keep going. People are going to be able to look at you and see someone who is doing just that.”
Jones recently revealed why she chose to keep her husband’s cancer battle private from his diagnosis in November 2023 until his death, explaining that she had chosen “the spotlight” while Ojeh had not.
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“She was like [an] atlas for a year and a half, carrying a family, caregiving for her husband, and up until several months ago, also working,” Melvin continued. “Our jobs are fairly demanding, and she was doing it and didn’t really think a whole lot of it at the time until it was all over. So, yeah, I just had this conversation about an hour or two ago. I sat next to her longer than anyone else in my career. I mean, we cohosted Weekend Today together and then the 3rd Hour, and I sat next to her in some capacity for more than a decade.”
Melvin, Jones and Ojeh were all “pretty good friends,” Melvin told Us. Last year, Ojeh even participated in Melvin’s Bottoms Up Invitational golf tournament, which is entering its fourth year. The tournament, which will be held Sunday, September 14 and Monday, September 15, is dedicated to the memory of Melvin’s older brother, Lawrence, who died of colon cancer. The past three tournaments raised over $3 million for the Colorectal Cancer Alliance. Melvin has been outspoken about his close work with the organization.
“We started this thing after my older brother died. He was 43 at the time, and he died from colorectal cancer, and he was diagnosed at 39. He was a Baptist minister, father of two and entrepreneur. And it really was a kick. It was a punch in the gut when he got the diagnosis,” Melvin said. “While he was alive, we started doing a fair amount of advocacy work with the Colorectal Cancer Alliance based in D.C., and it’s America’s largest charity devoted to ending colorectal cancer in our lifetime. It seemed like a natural fit.”
Melvin told Us that when it became clear Lawrence was “not going to survive his cancer battle,” his brother urged him to keep advocating for the cause.
“He insisted that I continue to work after he was gone, so I’ve done that. We use the megaphone at the Today show to raise awareness and encourage folks to get screened, and we’ve been doing that for a number of years now,” Melvin said. “And a friend of mine, several years ago, he was like, ‘You really could probably raise some money as well if you had a golf tournament and a concert,’ and that was Darius Rucker.”
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Melvin said the tournament was partially modeled on Monday After the Masters, which he and his wife, Lindsay Czarniak, have participated in.
“We decided not to reinvent the wheel, and so I called up some friends, and that first year, we were able to throw a heck of a concert and raise about a million dollars. We’ve raised, to date, about $3.2 million, and we expect to raise another million this year,” Melvin said. “This year we’re going to hear from a man who’s got stage IV colorectal cancer right now. He’s got a 5-year-old son, and he’s in the fight of his life. So we have these survivors and we have patients, and we have doctors and nurses and caregivers as well. All of them come together for a party with a purpose, doing the good work.”
