Jenna Bush Hager explains why she was late to “Today”
Jenna Bush Hager explains why she was late to “Today”
Leigh BlickleyMon, August 10, 2026 at 7:18 PM UTC
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Jenna Bush Hager on ‘Today With Jenna and Sheinelle’Credit: NBC NewsKey Points -
Jenna Bush Hager was late to arrive to Today on Monday.
The anchor was in Maine over the weekend to celebrate the baptism of her nephew.
Bush Hager and Sheinelle Jones chatted about the special occasion.
Jenna Bush Hager was later than usual when she arrived to Today on Monday.
The anchor, who hostsJenna & Sheinelle during the fourth hour of Today, made it to her scheduled program but not earlier segments in the broadcast. She’s usually present to greet fans on Rockefeller Plaza and deliver her “Morning Boost” segment, which Savannah Guthrie covered.
But, this time, Bush Hager was nowhere in sight.
Some of the cast and crew were even worried, her cohost Sheinelle Jones told her during the fourth hour.
“Everybody kept asking me … I mean, I’m not Jenna’s keeper,” Jones quipped. “‘Where’s Jenna? Sheinelle, where’s Jenna? Is Jenna gonna make it?’ I’m like, ‘Well, she didn’t text me, so that means it’s gonna be just fine.’”
Bush Hager responded, “By the way, just so you know, we’re cemented as a pair. That’s what happens.” Jones replied, “Clearly!”
Bush Hager said she walked in and “was like, ‘Oh, no.’ But you know what? It’s Monday. We’re all chill.”
She explained that she just got home from a trip up north, where she was celebrating a special occasion with the Bush family.
“Well, I’m straight off a flight because I was in Maine with my family and my little nephew got baptized,” Bush Hager said of her twin sister Barbara Pierce Bush’s 2-year-old son, Edward Finn Coyne.
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Sheinelle Jones and Jenna Bush Hager on ‘Today’Credit: NBC News
Bush Hager said that she was overcome with emotion during the ceremony when she read Mary Oliver’s poem “When I Am Among the Trees.”
“I was reading it, and it was in the church where I’ve gone with my grandparents [George H. W. Bush and Barbara Bush] my whole life. My kids were baptized there. I mean, see, what is wrong?” she questioned as she began to get choked up.
She added, “There’s something evolutionary about looking up and seeing your twin sister hold this big ol’ baby. I couldn’t help it. I was kind of weepy. But it was so fun to have all the cousins together.”
Bush Hager reassured Jones and the audience that Today producers knew she was flying home and “let me miss the earlier hours.” The women also interviewed actress Chrissy Metz on Monday’s show, who spoke about her experience starting a GLP-1.
Bush Hager would’ve probably liked to be at Today earlier in the morning to watch her friend Guthrie make her return after a brief hiatus. (She was off shooting her new Wordle game show.)
“It’s nice to be back home,” Guthrie told co-anchor Craig Melvin at the top of her return broadcast.
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Guthrie’s extended break also came amid other periods of absence from the daily program following the disappearance of her 84-year-old mother Nancy Guthrie, who was first reported missing over six months ago. The search for Nancy is ongoing.
“She has been braver than I can even imagine,” Bush Hager said of Savannah on Today in March. “She has been so vulnerable. I mean, she took her pain, her heart, her faith, her family in the midst of her despair, she laid it on the table for all of us. She didn’t have to do that. And she has. And I think of all of those people who’ve had heartbreak, they feel seen.”
on Entertainment Weekly
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
