Jon Batiste and Wife Suleika Had a ‘Reputation’ for Prank Calls During Her Cancer Hospitalization (Exclusive)

Faced with one of life’s most difficult challenges, Jon Batiste and his wife Suleika Jaouad discovered that laughter is the best medicine.

During her hospitalization amid a cancer relapse, Batiste and Jaouad did their best to keep things light — and even earned a good-humored guffaw from the staff.

“Whenever there’s a moment of laughter to be found, especially in the dark, that’s what we strive for,” Jaouad tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue. “We got a reputation for prank calling at the hospital so much so that nurses started coming in and asking us to prank their boyfriends and friends.”

Fans can see for themselves how the Grammy-winning musician, 37, and his wife, 35, put on a brave face in their new documentary American Symphony (streaming on Netflix November 29), which charts their lives leading up to the debut of Batiste’s original symphony in September 2022 at Carnegie Hall.

The film, directed by Matthew Heineman, was originally conceived as a way of documenting the creation of the symphony. But soon after, the couple received news that the acute myeloid leukemia that Jaouad was first diagnosed with at age 22 had returned and that Batiste had been nominated for 11 Grammys, setting off a very different story than they had originally planned.

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Suleika Jaouad and Jon Batiste in the American Symphony.

Courtesy of Netflix

The result is an intimate account of a man struggling to balance the highs of his career with the devastating lows of his personal life, and the ways in which love and art can heal.

“We’re both very private people, but more than that, especially with the piece about the disease, we didn’t know how the story would end,” says Jaouad, a journalist and writer. “But that for both of us, while it wasn’t necessarily comfortable, was part of the appeal of telling our story this way. We wanted to show what it’s like to be in the trenches of uncertainty, to have to hold that duality of light – the stunningly beautiful things that happen and the stunningly difficult things in the same palm.”

Batiste adds: “It’s really hard for me to watch. But the way it all came together is very powerful.”

Suleika Jaouad and Jon Batiste. Matt Sayles/AMPAS/Getty Jon Batiste recalls his ‘amazing’ experience when he was approached by more than 20 fans at the airport (Exclusive)

Although the film has many difficult moments, such as the deep phone conversations that Batiste has with his therapist, there are also lighter moments that show the couple’s humor. In one scene, Batiste visits his wife in the hospital and they walk down the hall, chanting “Lean on Me” while teasing each other with a game of Simon Says.

“It’s us,” he says of the silly dynamic.

It is these moments that best illustrate what Jaouad hopes is the central message of the American Symphony: that despite the circumstances, happiness and joy remain a choice.

“A lot of things that happen in life can be left on your knees,” she says. “I want people to know that they have freedom of choice, that they have a voice in how they face difficult times, whether it’s with love or creativity or their laughter.”

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

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Source: HIS Education