Jenna Bush Hager reveals the major causes of tensions she had with her father, former President George W. Bush, at a young age.
“There was a time when I did bad grades,” the TV host leaked on Friday’s “Today’s Episode with Jenna & Friends.” When guest co-host Shanell Jones looked skeptical, Hager doubled over saying “bad.”
Jones then asked her mother of three how her parents, George and Laura Bush, “handle it.”
“My dad sat with me at that kitchen table to teach math. We’re having a big fight and I cry to fall asleep,” laughed Hager, now 43.
Jones called the confession “interesting” and added that he considers it to be typical of “kitchen tables across the country at night.”
Hager did not elaborate precisely when the kitchen table meltdown occurred, but she and her brother’s twin sister, Barbara, were 19 years old in 2001 when her father’s first term as president.
Hager married her husband Henry in 2008, but since then they have welcomed children Mira, 12, Poppy, 10, and HAL, 6.
Despite past debates, Hager’s relationship with his father’s 79 is in good condition. In September 2024, she admitted to calling on the news that the former president would be leaving the show on NBC in tears.
“I don’t know if I’m going to say this or not, but I think I should (speak) my dad. And when you first started working with me, you were afraid so she called her dad.
Hager jumped in and remembered that George was “happy” for her, but jokingly reminded him that NBC veteran Kotb is a “star.”
“Then I called him last night,” Hager leaked. “In the beginning, he did something really bad (it happened) like I lost someone I loved because of how emotional I was.”
Hager went on to remember how his father comforted and encouraged him. “And he said, “Oh, she’s gone, it’s time, so you’re fine. It’s your turn. It’s alright.”
