Jenna Bush Hager has opened up about an uncomfortable early moment at the Today show, revealing that a colleague once suggested she owed her role to her family name.
Hager, 44, the daughter of former President George W. Bush and granddaughter of former President George H.W. Bush, shared the anecdote during an on-air discussion Wednesday about so-called “nepo babies.”
The former first daughter joined the Today show in 2009, not long after her father’s presidency came to an end.
According to Hager, the comment came just two months into her new job, when she was still finding her footing and felt acutely aware that she “didn’t know anything.” She recalled the colleague telling her bluntly: “We just thought they hired you because of your dad.”
Hager did not name the person who made the remark, but said the criticism cut to the core of a common anxiety for anyone with famous or influential parents.
Representatives for Hager have been contacted by the Daily Mail for further comment.
Today show anchor Jenna Bush Hager said a colleague once implied she got the job because of her famous father; she is pictured in 2021 with George W. Bush
Jenna Bush Hager, right, is pictured in 1987 with her fraternal twin sister Barbara, left, and their parents, Laura Bush and George W. Bush, when George H.W. Bush was vice president
Hager explained: ‘When people say mean things to me, which is online, that’s their thing, and I get it, and it’s the thing that probably all of us can feel bad about.’
‘But then what we do to get over that is work like crazy, work beyond, to where we’re working ourselves too much,’ the Dallas native alleged.
Hager claimed her purported overexertion had attracted the attention of her fellow NBC personality Maria Shriver, who is said to have asked: ‘Why are you doing this?’
Shriver herself is the scion of a political family, one of her maternal uncles was John F Kennedy and her father Sargent Shriver was a longstanding Democratic Party bigwig who spearheaded Lyndon B Johnson’s ‘war on poverty’ program.
In 1986, the year Shriver joined NBC after a brief stint at CBS, she became the wife of Arnold Schwarzenegger, who had established himself as one of the decade’s reigning action stars in such pictures as The Terminator and Conan the Barbarian.
On Wednesday’s episode of Today, Hager acknowledged: ‘I’m sure – and I haven’t asked my boss, and I’d rather not…I was on the show because my dad was president.’
Jenna and Barbara, pictured at their father’s first inauguration in 2001, became tabloid sensations that year by landing in legal trouble in Texas for drinking underage at 19
Their notoriety was enhanced when Amy Poehler and Tina Fey memorably parodied them as bubbleheaded party girls on Saturday Night Live
Hager and her twin sister Barbara became tabloid sensations during their father’s first year in office by landing in legal trouble in Texas for drinking underage at 19.
Their notoriety was enhanced when Amy Poehler and Tina Fey memorably parodied them as bobbleheaded party girls on Saturday Night Live.
However, Hager went on to be a guest on Today during her father’s second term to promote her 2007 book Ana’s Story: A Journey of Hope, a nonfiction account of a teenage mother born with HIV whom she had met as a UNICEF intern in Latin America.
Hager returned to the program with her mother Laura Bush, who was then first lady, when they co-authored a children’s picture book called Read All About It!.
She openly admitted that she ‘wouldn’t have gotten that opportunity’ if not for the family she came from, ‘and I know that,’ she said.
In 2009, months after Bush Jr left office, Jenna landed a regular spot on the Today show, for which she is pictured in a publicity portrait shortly after she was hired
‘And I think most people who have parents that, you know, we have a privilege that we know, and if you can own that…,’ she told her co-host Sheinelle Jones.
Hager insisted that when she was first asked to join the Today show, she demurred because she was working as a schoolteacher.
‘And then as we all know, teaching is the hardest job there is,’ Hager told Jones: ‘so eventually I took the interview and I started here.’
