American singer Jon Batiste and author Suleika Jaouad secretly tied the knot in February after being together for close to eight years, the couple told ‘CBS Sunday Morning.’

Also Read: Katrina Kaif and Vicky Kaushal are now legally married

Jaouad, the author of the cancer memoir ‘Between Two Kingdoms,’ said she was diagnosed with leukemia for the second time earlier this year. 

“We got married the day before I was admitted to the hospital to undergo my bone marrow transplant,” she said.

“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. This is not, you know, a hasty decision!” she laughed.

Also Read: Tamil wedding invitation from Glenn Maxwell and Vini Raman goes viral

The two reportedly met as teenagers while at band camp.

Jaouad said that after her diagnosis, her husband told her that he had been planning to propose to her for months. 

“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.’ But once we realized we had this tiny window before the bone marrow transplant, we decided to go for it,” she said.

Also Read: ‘Blockchain wedding’ of Pune couple featuring NFT vows and digital priest

They were able to arrange to get a marriage license “at the very last minute.”

“While I was in the OR getting a catheter placed into my chest. And it was absurd! There were nurses around, there were surgeons around. We had this computer. I was in a hospital gown. But we made it happen. And that night we went and bought our wedding outfits together, very last-minute, lots of laughter. But it was, you know, not anything like what we’d imagined. There were maybe four people present. It was private. It was tiny. And it was perfect,” she recalled. 

Meanwhile, Jon Batiste has 11 nominations in this year’s Grammys.