Jon Batiste Says Grammys Will Be a 'Do-Over' with Wife Suleika After Cancer Forced Her to Miss 2022 Show (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

Jon Batiste and Suleika Jaouad in Los Angeles in September 2019.Photo:Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty

Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty

Jon Batistemay be nominated for six awards at the2024 Grammys, but that’s not the only reason he’s looking forward to the show.

The “Freedom” singer had an impressive showing at the Grammys in 2022,winning five of the nearly dozen awardshe was nominated for, including the coveted album of the year.

But as he performed at the show and mingled with stars likeBillie Eilish, Jaouad, 35, was at home, watching his big night from the couch as she recovered from a bone marrow transplant following a cancer recurrence.

Jon Batiste and Suleika Jaouad.Matt Sayles/A.M.P.A.S./Getty

The night is featured in a moving scene from the couple’s new documentaryAmerican Symphony(streaming on Netflix Nov. 29), and serves as a prime example of the ways in which his personal life and professional life were at odds.

“It’s hard to be present when you’re in moments like the Grammys and everything is pulling your attention, and you have to be supremely focused, and you’ve worked all this time for a certain goal in your mind, and your partner is at home and going through this,” he says. “It was a lot of anxiety mixed with a lot of raw emotion and celebration. I think this year is going to be great.”

Batiste continues: “I think it’s going to be an amazing, poetic full-circle moment. It’s indeed [a big deal] but it’s an even bigger deal that it’s that song and Suleika and I will be there together.”

This year, theformerLate Showbandleaderis up for six Grammys, including album of the year once again.

“I’m so excited to celebrate Jon not from the couch, but the actual Grammys,” says Jaouad, a journalist and author.

Jon Batiste in American Symphony.Courtesy of Netflix

Courtesy of Netflix

During the 2022 Grammys, Batiste was a newlywed, as he and Jaouadtied the knot at homethat February, just one day before she underwent her transplant. This time around, they’ll have two years of marriage under their belt.

“I tell everybody, if you find the person, take the jump,” he says.

The couple’s love story is featured prominently inAmerican Symphony, which paints a portrait of their lives leading up to the September 2022 debut of Batiste’s original symphony at Carnegie Hall.

Jon Batiste and Suleika Jaouad.Vivien Killilea/Getty

Vivien Killilea/Getty

The result is an intimate depiction of a man doing his best to juggle the soaring highs of his career with the devastating lows of his personal life, and the ways in which love and art can heal.

“So much of what we all have to do in life is learning to navigate the peaks and the valleys,” says Jaouad.

For more on Jon Batiste and Suleika Jaouad, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands everywhere now.

source: people.com