Why Jon Batiste included wife Suleika Jaouad's cancer battle in his film ‘American Symphony’

Jon Batiste and Suleika Jaouad have an incredible love story.

The couple's romance is documented in Batiste's new film, "American Symphony," which was released on Netflix on Nov. 24.

During a Dec. 3 appearance on Sunday Sitdown, Batiste talked about the film, which was originally supposed to document his process of creating a new symphony but changed focus once Batiste and Jaouad learned her leukemia had returned.

In a 2012 column Jaouad wrote for The New York Times, she said she was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia when she was 22.

After going into remission, Jaouad announced that her leukemia had returned in December 2021.

While speaking with Willie Geist, Batiste said he wanted to include Jaouad's cancer battle in the film because he wanted to show what their life was like behind the scenes.

"We decided to keep filming because it’s bigger than us at a certain point, when the cameras are rolling," he said.

"We realized for her it’s a way to show the narrative of what a sick individual goes through, unvarnished. This is in the midst of not knowing if we’re going to come out on the other side. And ultimately for me it was a way to show, as a caretaker and also an artist, and as a creator, how art and creativity, for anybody, can become a survival mechanism."

Read on to learn more about Jaouad and Batiste's love story.

Jon Batiste and Suleika Jaouad meet at band camp

According to Jaouad, she and Batiste met when she was 13 and he was 14.

In an August 2020 Instagram post, she said it was a really "awkward" encounter because of the setting: band camp.

Jon Batiste and Suleika Jaouad reconnect years later

In a 2012 column Jaouad wrote for The New York Times, she said she learned she was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia at 22.

While hospitalized, she said she received a visit from Batiste, who was already making headways with his career at the time.

"My friend Jon Batiste, an internationally acclaimed jazz musician whom I’d first met at a music camp as a teenager, came to visit me in the hospital," she said. "To my surprise, he showed up with his entire band, made up of Ibanda Ruhumbika, a tuba player; Eddie Barbash, an alto saxophonist; and Joe Saylor, a drummer. They call themselves the Stay Human Band."

Jon Batiste and Suleika Jaouad get married

In February 2022, the couple got married a few months after Jaouad revealed she was undergoing chemotherapy, with a bone marrow transplant scheduled.

On Instagram, Jaouad said their nuptials happened "last-minute."

Batiste told People that they got married at home because their house always felt like "a temple" for them.

"It really has been a place where we go and it replenishes our soul. We built something very, very special. It’s the combination of both of us,” he said.

“Our time there has helped to level a lot of what’s happening. We got married in that house," Batiste added.

Batiste said that he and Jaouad didn't invite a lot of people to their at-home wedding.

“It was just close family," he said. "It was one of those things that we did the day before her bone marrow transplant. It was a very deep time in our lives, obviously for so many reasons. All the time that we put into building this house — it’s been three years that we’ve been renovating, building and finding furniture and doing all these things to make it just right, so it’s a beautiful combination of all that.”

The two walked down the aisle together one month before Batiste won big at the 2022 Grammys. That year, he took home five awards, including album of the year, for his work on his sixth studio album, "We Are."

Jon Batiste gives an update on Suleika Jaouad's health

At the 2022 Met Gala, Batiste gave an update on his wife's health.

He told "Entertainment Tonight" that Jaouad is "doing great."

"This is actually the best two weeks we’ve had so far. I’m very grateful," he said. "We are blessed by God. God’s holding us and lifting us up.”

In June, Batiste also told People that his wife is "doing better."

“Every single day we are praying and continuing the — I mean, she is incredible. You wouldn’t think that she is going through what she’s going through when you see her,” he said. “She has this ability to take the toughest challenges and make it life-affirming. So, with her it’s a special case. How she’s doing, it’s a Suleika thing.”

Jon Batiste's love story with Suleika Jaouad is documented in 'American Symphony'

"American Symphony" was released on Netflix on Nov. 24. The documentary gave fans a behind-the-scenes look at Batiste and Jaouad's love life after they learned her leukemia had returned.

"I'm always in awe of Suleika, how she deals with hardships," Batiste said in the trailer while he appeared to be praying near her hospital bed.

The trailer also showed some shots of Batiste winning big at the 2022 Grammys, and Jaouad struggling to keep it together as she battled cancer.

"We've both had so many good things happening and so many incredibly hard things," she said. "I honestly don't know how to hold such extremes."

On Instagram, Jaouad also talked about the film and said she learned a lot of important life lessons from being around Batiste.

"For a lot of my adult life, I believed I was bad at relationships. I worried I would never be able to maintain a stable, long-term relationship with a partner — much less create the kind of relationship that I have with Jon," she said.

"But Jon’s belief that hard things will happen, that disappointments will happen, that disruptions will happen — whether in your personal life or your professional life — and what matters most is how you show up and how you move forward — that has changed me."

This article was originally published on TODAY.com