Jenna Bush Hager Recalls Husband Reluctantly Co-Hosting ‘Today’ With Her

Jenna Bush Hager has fond and funny memories of co-hosting the fourth hour of Today with her husband, Henry Hager.

Following Hoda Kotb‘s Today exit in January 2025, Bush Hager led the NBC morning show’s fourth hour, titled Today With Jenna & Friends, with a variety of celebrity guest hosts before Sheinelle Jones permanently took over the role earlier this year.

One of Jenna & Friends‘ most memorable guest hosts was none other than Bush Hager’s real-life partner. “He was a friend, and he was actually a favorite. Wasn’t he, y’all?” Bush Hager recalled during Today With Jenna & Sheinelle‘s Wednesday, June 24, episode. “He was cute. And also, it was cute because people knew he didn’t necessarily really want to do it, but he was doing it for me.”

While co-hosting the show with Hager was “fun,” Bush Hager noted that it also came with a “lot of pressure.” She stated, “[I was] like, ‘Oh, gosh. He [doesn’t] know how to read the prompter.’ At one point, [our executive producer] Talia [Parkinson-Jones] goes, ‘Stop interrupting him.’ Talia, I told on you. She’s like, ‘Let him talk,’ but I just wanted to help him so much.”

Hager made his Jenna & Friends guest-hosting debut during the show’s “Family Week” in March 2025. He returned to co-host the show’s pre-recorded Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve episodes in December 2025.

During one of his first episodes on the show, the couple answered questions about their relationship while taking a lie detector test. Wednesday’s episode of Jenna & Sheinelle played a clip of the segment, in which Hager was asked if he loved his wife more after the game. Though he replied ‘yes’ multiple times, each result detected that he was lying.

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“That’s hilarious. Does it go off of your — was he nervous, maybe?” Jones asked after watching the clip. Bush Hager replied, “No, because, unfortunately, some of the other things worked.”

Jones wrapped up the conversation by asking Bush Hager, “Was there anything that you learned from each other?” She jokingly answered, “That he doesn’t love me anymore. That he was tired of me.”

Bush Hager and her husband wed in 2008 and share three kids together — Mila, Poppy, and Hal. During the Tuesday, June 23, episode of Jenna & Sheinelle, Bush Hager recalled the time she thought a sweet gesture from Hager on a date was actually a marriage proposal.

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“[The restaurant] used to send out fortune cookies, and you could write your fortune for your girlfriend or whoever. And so, he was gonna do that,” she shared. “And unfortunately, it didn’t get in in time, so they just sent two champagne glasses, and Hank is not a champagne guy. And on the thing was the fortune, which they also misunderstood.”

At the time, Bush Hager was about to move to Panama to work for UNICEF, but told Hager she would stay if he proposed. “[His fortune cookie message] said, ‘Don’t go. Stay.’ And so, I looked up, and I was like, ‘Yes! Yes!'” she stated. “And he was like, ‘No, I’m not asking you.’ And I was like, ‘I will marry you!'”

Today With Jenna & Sheinelle, Weekdays, 10 am, NBC