Meredith Vieira’s husband, award-winning journalist Richard M. Cohen, has died at the age of 76 after battling multiple sclerosis for more than 50 years.
Vieira, a former co-host on the “Today” show, married Cohen in 1986. The couple had three children: sons Benjamin and Gabriel and daughter Lily.
“Today” anchor Hoda Kotb confirmed Cohen’s death revealing on Jan. 7 that the author died on Christmas Eve while surrounded by his family.
“Meredith did say that all of the kids came around Thanksgiving because they were concerned they were going to lose him early, but instead, they got a month—a glorious month—she said with their dad,” Kotb said.
Kotb’s co-host, Savannah Guthrie, called Vieira “a beautiful and devoted wife.”
“And he adored Meredith,” Guthrie said of Cohen. “They were like the most fun, entertaining … cool couple you could hang out with.”
Cohen was born on Feb. 14, 1948, in New York City. He attended Simpson College in Des Moines, Iowa, before launching his journalism career with ABC News in 1971 as an assistant producer for the news program “Issues and Answers,” according to the Stem for Life Foundation.
Cohen went on to obtain a master’s degree in journalism from New York’s Columbia University in 1976. He later served as a producer on “The MacNeil/Lehrer Report,” now known as “PBS NewsHour,”
Cohen has earned three Daytime Emmy Awards and a George Foster Peabody Award, among other accolades, for his journalism coverage.
“Of all of his many accomplishments, if you asked him, he’d say he was proudest of his family,” said Kotb.
Living With MS
Cohen was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, or MS, at the age of 25 while still early in his journalism career.
The progressive disease causes damage to the central nervous system, resulting in a range of symptoms, including trouble walking, weakness, numbness, and vision changes, according to the Mayo Clinic.
There is currently no known cure for MS. However, treatments may help manage symptoms.
During a 2019 interview with Yahoo Lifestyle, Cohen discussed the chain of events that led up to his diagnosis.
“I dropped a coffee pot for no reason. I fell off a curb for no reason. I noticed a little numbness in my leg,” he explained.
“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.”
Cohen—who also survived two bouts of colon cancer—said MS ran in his family. Both his father and paternal grandmother were diagnosed with the disease. He told Vieira, whom he met in 1982, about his own diagnosis on their second date.
“I told her about the illness, because I sort of learned the hard way to get it on the table,” he told the publication. “And she really didn’t blink.”
The New York Times bestselling author chronicled his health struggles in several books. These include “Blindsided: Lifting a Life Above Illness: A Reluctant Memoir” (2004), “Strong at the Broken Places: Voices of Illness, a Chorus of Hope” (2008), and “Chasing Hope: A Patient’s Deep Dive into Stem Cells, Faith, and the Future” (2018).
Cohen recalled the moment he was told he had MS in his 2004 book, writing that “at that moment, [his] journey to a strange new land began.”
“That place would be both exotic and rude. There would be no certain return,” he continued.
“Illness is an unexplored frontier, Virginia Woolf wrote in a 1925 essay. Sickness would take its place with love and war and jealousy as the forces of a newly defined life.”
Cohen told Yahoo Lifestyle that people do not have to be controlled by MS despite their symptoms.
“I can give you a long list of things that I can’t do anymore,” said Cohen, who was left legally blind as a result of the disease.
“You just sort of learn to accept that. I look at our three kids, I look at our relationship, I’ve written four books—what do I have to complain about?”