Jenna Bush Hager and her husband almost got the boot from her parents’ home.
During the Wednesday, October 8, episode of TODAY With Jenna & Friends, the talk show host, 43, recalled a misunderstanding that inspired her to stop living under George W. Bush and Laura Bush’s roof.
At the time, Jenna’s then-boyfriend, Henry Hager, had to come over and visit her, which caused unexpected tension.
“Sometimes, it’s hard when you’re an adult living back with your parents…I lived with my parents for a very brief period because I had written a book, and I was on book tour. I was going to move in with Henry before we got married. I was on book tour, and it didn’t make sense,” she recalled. “I was living there, and Henry was visiting, and it was Christmastime. My mom came in. We may have been out the night before. My mom came in and said, ‘Henry, I know what you did.’ And Henry’s like, ‘Oh my gosh.’ My mom’s not very strict. ‘I know what you did. You took Joseph.’ He said, ‘What?’”
Laura was packing up the creches at the White House and assumed that Henry had stolen one of them after “a couple of beers.”
“He said, ‘On my word, I did not take Joseph. I promise you I didn’t.’ And my mom was like, ‘No, I know you did. I know you took Joseph,’” Jenna said. “And then they found the little creche piece underneath a bureau somewhere. It was a false accusation. What that said was, ‘Y’all got to get out of here. I’m tired of you coming in late. You could’ve done something like stolen Joseph, and I’m getting grumpy with your towels on the ground and such…you’ve got to launch.’”
Henry is not the only one who has gotten in trouble with the former president and first lady. In 2001, Jenna was arrested twice: once for underage possession of alcohol in Texas and again for using a fake ID to purchase drinks.
“I was arrested! There’s a mugshot that says I didn’t get away with it,” she spilled on the August 11 episode of Today.
She further detailed her brush with the law in 2023.
“I didn’t actually go to jail, I just was arrested,” she told Hoda Kotb at the time. “I wasn’t even arrested. I was never detained. I just got a minor in possession of alcohol when I was 20 years old because I ordered a margarita at Chuy’s with a fake ID.”
