Beloved ‘Today’ Anchor’s Husband Passes Away

In a heartbreaking moment on live TV, the colleagues of veteran “Today” anchor Meredith Vieira announced that her husband has died following a longtime battle with multiple sclerosis.

Vieira, 71, lost her husband, Richard Cohen, at the age of 76, the morning show’s anchors told viewers Tuesday morning. The couple had been married for nearly four decades and shared three adult children. Cohen, who had lived with the disease for nearly 50 years, died on Christmas Eve “surrounded by his family and love,” Hoda Kotb said on the show. She said sons Ben, 36, and Gabe, 34, and daughter Lily, 32, had been in town since Thanksgiving and were at their father’s bedside as he fought his final battle with a pneumonia infection.

“[They were] concerned they were going to lose him early. Instead, they got a glorious month with their dad,” she added, according to the Daily Mail. Savannah Guthrie revealed she had spoken with Vieira, whom she said was in “good spirits” considering the tragic situation. “She’s in really good spirits. She was such a beautiful and devoted wife to Richard and he adored Meredith,” Guthrie said. “And hanging out with them, they were like the most fun and entertaining, irreverent, cool couple you could hang out with.”

Cohen met Vieira while working in the news industry, where he held positions with CNN, CBS, and the New York Times over the years. At the Times, he wrote about his struggles with MS for the Health and Fitness section. One time, he “dropped a coffeepot for no reason. I fell off a curb for no reason. I noticed a little numbness in my leg,” he previously told Yahoo News about discovering he had the disease at 25 years old. “It hit my eyesight fairly quickly, but other than that, I was very active physically and I thought I was really beating it. I was living in denial.”

Telling Vieira about his condition on their first date didn’t dissuade the future “Today” host from marrying Cohen in 1986. “I sort of learned the hard way to get it on the table,” he explained. “She didn’t blink.” Looking back on his life in 2019, Cohen expressed pride in his career and the family he raised with the love of his life. “You don’t have to be controlled by it. I can give you a long list of things that I can’t do anymore. You just sort of learn to accept that,” he continued. “I look at our three kids, I look at our relationship, I’ve written four books … what do I have to complain about?”

Best known for hosting “The Today Show” from 2006 to 2011, Vieira also helped launch ABC’s “The View” as one of its original hosts as well as “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” from 2002 to 2013. She launched her own talk show in 2014, “The Meredith Vieira Show,” but it fizzled after two seasons. Today, she hosts the Fox game series “25 Words or Less.”

Turnover at “Today” has been a recurring theme of its current cast. In November, Kotb announced her retirement and replacement by longtime correspondent Craig Melvin, affording the 70-year-old her retirement after 17 years on the job.