Who Is Jon Batiste's Wife? All About Suleika Jaouad

Mar. 15, 2025

Photo: Jamie McCarthy/Getty

Jon Batisteis one of the most talented and versatile musicians of his generation. He has been playing musical instruments since he was just 8 years old and has worked with iconic artists likeLenny Kravitz,Stevie WonderandPrince, in addition to releasing music of his own.

Next, Batiste is set toperform the national anthemat the 2025 Super Bowl. By his side through it all has been his wife, Suleika Jaouad, who is aNew York Timesbest-selling author, an Emmy Award-winning journalist and a motivational speaker.

The couple first met as teenagers at band camp and reconnected 12 years later while Jaouad was receiving treatment for leukemia.They eventually wedin February 2022.

While Batiste and Jaouad are a private couple, they gave fans a glimpse into their relationship in the Netflix documentaryAmerican Symphony, which follows the musician ahead of his 2022 Carnegie Hall performance.

From her work as a writer to her cancer diagnosis, here’s everything to know about Suleika Jaouad and her relationship with Jon Batiste.

She has two degrees

Suleika Jaouad Instagram

According to herpersonal website, Jaouad attended the pre-college program for the double bass at The Juilliard School. She then earned her bachelor’s from Princeton University, where she played in the University Orchestra, and an MFA in writing and literature from Bennington College.

She was diagnosed with leukemia when she was 22

Rommel Demano/Getty

Jaouad had just graduated from Princeton University when she was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, a form of leukemia that targets the blood and bone marrow. According to a March 2021 interview withHealthmagazine, she was given a 35 percent chance of survival.

She documented her experience as a young adult battling cancer inThe New York Timescolumn and video series,Life, Interrupted, which went on to win anEmmy Award.

“Cancer has forced me to pause my life at a time when my peers are just beginning theirs,” shewrote in her debut piecefor the column. “Like my peers, I have yet to fully define who I want to become. But as a young cancer patient, it’s difficult to see ahead when I’m fighting for my life. I don’t know what the future holds. I just know I want to be there.”

She first met Batiste at band camp

Cindy Ord/Getty

The pair crossed paths when she was 13 and he was 14 at band camp, which Jaouad called “the most awkward place on earth,“in a 2020 Instagram post.

They reconnected when Batiste visited her in the hospital while she was receiving treatment for her leukemia.

“To my surprise, he showed up with his entire band,” shewrote in a piece for her column. “Every inch of the 25-room floor was filled with music. Timidly at first, and then with jubilation, patients, nurses and other hospital workers began to dance and clap.”

Jaouad continued, “The oncology ward was breathing a sigh of relief, its inhabitants rejoicing in a temporary timeout, losing themselves to the beauty and healing power of the music. I was beaming beneath my face mask. The saints had marched in. And they played that song, too.”

She inspired Batiste’s 2021 song, “Show Me the Way”

Matt Sayles/A.M.P.A.S.

During a 2021 appearance on thePEOPLE Every Daypodcast, Batiste revealed that his relationship with Jaouad served as the inspiration for his emotional track, “Show Me the Way.”

“It speaks to a lot of me growing up and also our relationship,” he explained. “It’s a beautiful thingto have — that piece of our relationship sliced off into the album.”

He also shared that their bond had deepened while in quarantine during the COVID-19 pandemic. “Obviously there’s so much loss that we’ve faced individually and collectively, but I find that this time has also been a blessing in that it gives us a break to be with each other,” he said.

In October 2022, the couple posted asweet videoof Batiste singing a different, but also wonderful, song to his wife:Billie Holiday’s “I’ll Be Seeing You.”

In the video, the musician wraps his arm around Jaouad as they walk together. “The proper way to board a plane 🛫,” Batiste captioned the joint post.

She is fighting leukemia again

In December 2021, Jaouadannounced in her newsletterthat her leukemia had returned and she was undergoing chemotherapy, with a bone marrow transplant scheduled.

“When I got the biopsy results, it felt like a sinkhole opened up and swallowed everything,” she wrote. “Within 72 hours, Jon and I packed our things, found friends to care for Oscar and Loulou, gave copies of our keys to our neighbor, canceled work and cleared our schedules, and were on our way to the hospital in New York City.”

After a quiet few months on social media, Jaouad gave followersan updateabout her medical journey, writing, “I’ve been on a long break from anything internet related for the last month. I’ve resumed chemo, and I’ve been resting, reading novels, hanging out with my new road dog River (more on her soon!), and spending time with family.”

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Jaouad was hospitalized amid her cancer treatment. At the time, family members weren’t allowed to visit patients, so Batiste turned to music to stay connected to his wife. The lullabies he wrote her have since inspired the song “Butterfly,” which appears on his albumWorld Music Radio.

“It’s just sucha personal narrativesong in relation to my life and what my family has gone through and my wife and all of the things she’s been able to overcome,” Batiste told PEOPLE.

“It’s a miracle. She’s doing so much better after her [bone marrow] transplant,” he said. “Everything is going as great as it can go, and we just pray that it continues.”

Another update on Jaouad’s health came in December 2024, when she shared a post onInstagramrevealing that she found out she had cancer “for the third time.”

While looking back on her year, she wrote, “Like life, my health was in flux. I felt healthier than ever only to learn my leukemia was back. I had to adjust to a grueling monthly chemo regimen. My dad stepped in as my caregiver and I’ve cherished our one-on-one time.”

She and Batiste skipped out on the Grammys in February 2025, and the couple shared a jointInstagram postthat included a selfie from the “lazy Sunday” they were having instead.

“We’re so honored to win the Grammy for Best Music Film for American Symphony (and also for Song Written For Visual Media too!),” said their caption. “We couldn’t make it to the ceremony but we’re beaming love from our couch to yours, and sending gratitude to all who made this film possible.”

She and Batiste married in February 2022

Batiste and Jaouad revealed onCBS Sunday Morningthat they had secretly tied the knot in February 2022 ahead of her bone marrow transplant.

“We have known thatwe wanted to get married, I think, from the first week that we started dating. That’s when Jon first brought up the topic of marriage to me. So, we’ve had eight years,” she added. “This is not, you know, a hasty decision!”

Batiste provided more information about their wedding at theTIME 100 Galain 2022, where he was honored as one of TIME magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World.

He told PEOPLE that they decided to get married in their own home because “it has beena place we go to replenishour soul.”

“We built something very, very special. It’s the combination of both of us,” he said. “It’s the perfect blend of all of our experiences together, and all of our ancestral experiences coming together. And it’s amazing that we have that in the midst of this time.”

Batiste also praised Jaouad’s strength, saying, “You wouldn’t think that she is going through what she’s going through when you see her. She has this ability to take the toughest challenges and make it life-affirming. So, with her it’s a special case. How she’s doing, it’s a Suleika thing.”

She is an author, journalist, speaker and artist

Like her husband, Jaouad is truly a multi-hyphenate.

She is the best-selling author ofBetween Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted, which, “traces her journey from diagnosis to remission and, ultimately, a road trip of healing and self-discovery.”

Jaouad’s essays and reported features have also been published in a variety of publications, includingThe Atlantic, The Guardian, VogueandNPR, among others.

On top of being a talented writer, she is also a skilled painter and was previously an artist in residence atArtYard, Ucross and the Kerouac Project. In March 2022, she announced her100-Day Project, in which she planned to create an original painting every day for 100 days as she underwent treatment. She documented the challenge on Instagram, sharing her finishedworkand photos of herpainting from her hospital bed.

Jaouad shares her story through various speaking engagements across the globe as well. HerTED Talk, which discusses life after cancer, has garnered nearly five million views.

She is a cancer advocate and passionate about charity work

Jaouad has served onBarack Obama’s Presidential Cancer Panel, the Bone Marrow and Cancer Foundation and the national advisory board of Family Reach. She is also passionate about other charitable causes and issues including social justice,prison reformand more.

She and Batiste star in the Netflix documentaryAmerican Symphony

American Symphonyfollows Batiste ahead of his orchestral debut at Carnegie Hall and Jaouad as she faces a cancer resurgence.

“We’re both very private people, but more than that, especially with the illness piece, we didn’t know how the story was going to end,” Jaouad told PEOPLE ahead of the documentary’s premiere in November 2023.

“But that, for both of us, even though it wasn’t necessarily comfortable, was part of the appeal of telling our story this way,” she continued. “We wanted to show what it means to be in the trenches of uncertainty, to have to hold that duality of light — the astonishingly beautiful things that are happening and the astonishingly hard ones in the same palm.”

Batiste added, “It really is hard for me to watch it. But it’s very powerful the way it all came together.”

She attends events with Batiste

Mike Coppola/Getty

Batiste walked hand-in-hand with Jaouad at the 2024 Oscars red carpet in March 2024.

“She is a painter, and so it felt right to have her gown used as a canvas. Chaz and I have known each other for years, and I knew he would approach this with the dedication and intention needed to feel right,” she said.

The Grammy winner wore a tuxedo to the dinner while Jaouad was photographed in a long yellow gown and sparkly heels.

source: people.com