Meredith Vieira’s Husband Richard Cohen Dies After Battling MS for 50 Years

Richard Cohen, the husband of veteran broadcast journalist and former Today anchor Meredith Vieira, has died. He was 76.

His passing was confirmed on Tuesday’s (January 7) episode of the Today show, where it was revealed Cohen died on Christmas Eve after living over 50 years with multiple sclerosis (MS) and surviving two separate colon cancer diagnoses.

Today co-host Hoda Kotb noted that Cohen was “surrounded by his family and love” at the time of his death, including his wife, Vieira, and their three children, daughter Lily (32) and sons Gabriel (34) and Benjamin (36).

Savannah Guthrie added, “[Vieira’s] in really good spirits. She was such a beautiful and devoted wife to Richard and he adored Meredith. And hanging out with them, they were like the most fun and entertaining, irreverent, cool couple you could hang out with.”

Cohen, a veteran journalist himself who worked for CBS News, appeared on the Today show in 2018 with Vieira, where he opened up about living with MS.

“I was diagnosed when I was 25 years old and essentially told there is no hope,” he shared, per Today.com. “Diagnosed and adios. Nothing much we can do.”

In a separate interview with Yahoo Life in 2019, Cohen revealed that he told Vieira about his condition on their second date, “because I sort of learned the hard way to get it on the table. And she really didn’t blink.”

Vieira added, “I’ve always been of the school of thought that you could get hit by a bus the next day, any one of us could. It certainly wasn’t enough to scare me off.”

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Cohen and Vieira got married on June 14, 1986, and went on to have three children together. They lived in Irvington, Westchester County, New York.

Vieira served as a co-host on The View from 1997 to 2006 and the original host of the syndicated daytime version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire from 2002 to 2013. In 2006, she left The View and joined NBC’s Today, serving as co-host until 2011 when she left the show to spend more time with Cohen and their kids.

“Time is one of those weird things. You can never get enough of it, and it just keeps ticking away. And I know that I want to spend more of mine with my husband, Richard, and my kids,” she said at the time.

Since 2019, Vieira has hosted the syndicated weekday game show 25 Words or Less.