Surprise! Jon Batiste is a married man.
The Grammy winner, 35, secretly married longtime partner Suleika Jaouad in February. Jaouad, author of bestselling cancer memoir Between Two Kingdoms, told CBS Sunday Morning that the couple wanted to tie the knot after she was diagnosed with leukemia for the second time.
“We got married the day before I was admitted to the hospital to undergo my bone marrow transplant,” she told the outlet.
“We have known that we 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,” Jaouad joked. “This is not, you know, a hasty decision!”
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Despite the couple getting married before her bone marrow transplant, Jaouad, 33, said her diagnosis wasn’t really a factor in Batiste’s decision to pop the question.
“He said to me, ‘I just want to be very clear, I’m not proposing to you because of this diagnosis. It’s taken me a year to design your ring. So, just know this timing has nothing to do with it. But what I do want you to know is that this diagnosis doesn’t change anything. It just makes it all the clearer to me that I want to commit to this and for us to be together,'” Jaouad told CBS. “But once we realized we had this tiny window before the bone marrow transplant, we decided to go for it.”
Matt Sayles/A.M.P.A.S./Getty Suleika Jaouad and Jon Batiste
Batiste and Jaouad were able to get their marriage license quickly and had a “tiny” and “perfect” wedding, adding that they “used bread ties” instead of formal wedding rings.
“And I’ll tell you, we walked into that bone marrow transplant unit on cloud nine,” Jaouad added. “We were so happy, so brimming with love and positivity from this beautiful evening that we’d had. And I really believe that that carried us through.”
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Last year, the musician opened up to PEOPLE about creating his album, We Are, and how his track “Show Me the Way” exemplifies the manifestation of his relationship with Jaouad.
“It speaks to a lot of me growing up and also our relationship,” Batiste said at the time. “It’s a beautiful thing to have that piece of our relationship sliced off into the album.”
During the 64th Annual Grammy Awards Sunday, Batiste took home five awards, including best music video and album of the year, after receiving a whopping 11 nominations for the evening.
In the press room following his wins, Batiste was asked about the “duality” of the moment given the situation in his personal life.
“It puts it in perspective. Life has ups and downs. And sometimes the ups and downs occur at the same time,” he said. “And when you have that happening, it really lets you know by shaking your consciousness and saying, ‘Be present. Be here.’ So what’s going on back home and what’s happening today are both in their proper place for me.”
The 64th Annual Grammy Awards, hosted by Trevor Noah, are airing and streaming live on Sunday from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.
