Meredith Vieira's Husband, Richard Cohen, Dead At 76
Richard Cohen, husband of journalist and TV host Meredith Vieira, passed away on Christmas Eve 2024. He lived with multiple sclerosis (MS) for over 50 years and survived two bouts with colon cancer in 1999 and 2000.
Hoda Kotb announced his passing on January 7, 2025, on "Today," the morning show that Viera co-hosted from 2006 to 2011. She explained Cohen was "surrounded by his family and love" at the time of his passing (via People). According to Kotb, Vieria and their children were worried about Cohen potentially passing around Thanksgiving of last year. "Instead, they got a glorious month with their dad," Kotb said. His obituary in The Hudson Independent revealed that Cohen had been battling pneumonia for two months prior to his passing and that he died peacefully.
Like his wife, Cohen was a respected journalist himself. He was a senior producer at CBS News and would also write op-eds for outlets like The New York Times. He's survived by Vieira and their three children, Lily, Benjamin, and Gabriel, the last of whom followed in his parents' footsteps and is a reporter for CNN.
The impact of Cohen's health on his marriage
Richard Cohen and Meredith Vieira enjoyed a near-forty-year marriage together, and he made sure she knew about his diagnosis from the very beginning. "I had told her about the MS in the earliest days of our relationship because I wanted us to deal with the subject before we got too serious. She never inched," Cohen wrote in his 2018 memoir "Chasing Hope." "It certainly wasn't enough to scare me off," Vieira told Yahoo! Life in 2019.
Still, their marriage wasn't without its struggles due to Cohen's illness. In "Chasing Hope," Cohen described a day when he fell several times but refused help. This angered Vieira to no end. "Meredith had a different take on the situation. She had been pushed over the edge. She angrily told me she was done with the MS. I still can visualize the desperation on her face," he wrote.
Cohen became very cognizant of his illness's impact on Vieira. "Spouses have the burden of tending to the needs of a loved one, even when they would secretly rather push him out a window," he wrote. However, the couple persevered and would vent together over their frustrations with multiple sclerosis. "That's part of the deal," Vieira told People in 2019. "Certainly, he's allowed to vent ... But I am too. Because there are days I can't stand it and the limitations it puts on the entire family ... But we don't dwell."