Jenna Bush Hager is looking back at how her former Today cohost, Hoda Kotb, influenced her career on the legendary morning show.
“It’s been an amazing opportunity [leading the fourth hour]. In the same way that I didn’t envision myself working at the Today show, I never envisioned Hoda leaving,” Bush Hager, 43, said on the Tuesday, July 8, episode of the “How She Does It With Karen Finerman” podcast. “In fact, she kept saying, ‘Don’t sign your contract.’”
She continued, “I thought she was saying that so we could link up our contracts and be there until the same time, but what she was doing was protecting me because she knew I was gonna be doing the show on my own.”
Kotb, 60, emceed Today for more than two decades, ultimately leaving earlier this year to pursue other projects and spend more time with her family. Bush Hager now helms the fourth hour program, which has been rebranded as Jenna & Friends.
“I didn’t even have one inkling of a thought that she was about to say, ‘I’m leaving.’ It’s nothing we discussed,” she said. “I know she loved her work and loves her work, and so, leaving it … I couldn’t wrap my mind around it until I sat down with her [and] I heard her reasoning. It was not something I chose. It was a shock, and it was a disappointment at the time.”
According to Bush Hager, she and Kotb “really sat in the goodbye of it” until the veteran TV journalist’s final episode aired in January.
“We, kind of, mourned what was,” Bush Hager added. “We leaned into what this new chapter would look like. We talked about it a lot. We met about it [and I] felt we were in a really good spot for it to happen.”
Now that Bush Hager is the leader of the fourth hour, she hasn’t tried to change her work style too much.
“I lead with humor, and one of the things that’s been a great blessing that’s been uncovered is we were always a really tight team,” she said. “The Today show is a family … [and] it’s a really wonderful place to work, and I know that legacy of it.”
The former first daughter also tries to “lead with appreciation and gratitude.”
“I’m constantly telling people ‘thank you’ for the work that they do,” Bush Hager said. “Many of the times, the producers are what make the show hum at all. I also have vulnerability. I’m very honest about my feelings and, right now, the way I feel is wildly grateful for this team of people that’s gotten me through this.”
Bush Hager also noted that the Today crew has gotten closer since Kotb’s exit.
“When you go through the loss of something and the development of something new, you depend on each other,” she said. “That’s been a really fun, beautiful chapter that I never would have asked for.”
Bush Hager leads Jenna & Friends alongside a rotating lineup of celebrity cohosts, such as her husband, Henry Hager, Dwyane Wade, Scarlett Johansson and even Kotb.
“We will eventually have a permanent host, I think, but we don’t know,” Bush Hager added. “I like planning and plans and knowing how things are going to go. For my personality, this has been a challenge. It’s been a great way to live in the present. Like, we do not have a plan, and that does not scare me. We don’t need one. … What we’re doing now is great.”
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