Jenna Bush Hager was caught off guard on the Today show on Friday when her co-host Hoda Kotb asked if her husband, Henry Hager, was her best friend.
The Today with Hoda & Jenna stars debated whether your partner should also be your best friend while chatting about a recent Wall Street Journal article on the subject.
“Is your husband your best friend?” Kotb, 59, asked Bush Hager, 41, who stuttered briefly before answering the complicated question.
“Um, I love Henry so much,” she said, laughing. “I love him, but… And I do (love him). Like, yeah, he’s one of my best friends. I mean, I adore him, and I tell him everything. ‘But I like friends. I love my girlfriends.’
Jenna Bush Hager, 41, was caught off guard on the Today show on Friday after her co-host Hoda Kotb asked her if her husband, Henry Hager, was her best friend
The couple married in May 2008 and celebrated their 15th anniversary last spring
Bush Hager and Henry have three children together: Mila, 10, Poppy, eight, and Hal, four
Bush Hager has been married to Henry for 15 years and they share three children: Mila, ten, Poppy, eight, and Hal, four.
She noted that your partner will naturally be one of your closest confidantes because you live together and see each other every time.
“The definition of best friend is so arbitrary,” she said. “Different friends are closer on different days.”
Kotb then wanted to know how often Bush Hager talks to Henry each day, and she was surprised by their constant communication.
‘I already spoke to him today. He calls the car on the way to school, checks in. We probably talk or text at least ten times,” the former first daughter estimates.
‘Really and truly? Wow. That’s a lot,” Kotb said.
“Is that too much?” Bush Hager asked.
‘Yes. That’s a lot of talking and texting,” Kotb responded, and the crowd seemed to agree with her.
The Today co-hosts debated whether your partner should also be your best friend when Kotb asked Bush Hager if Henry was her best friend
“Um, I love Henry so much,” she said, laughing. “I love him, but… And I do (love him). Yes, he’s one of my best friends… But I like girlfriends. I love my girlfriends’
Bush Hager shocked Kotb when she revealed that she and Henry talk or text “at least ten times” a day. “We don’t call ten times,” she clarified. “We text like, ‘Miss you, love you.'”
“We don’t call ten times,” Bush Hager clarified. “We text like, ‘Miss you, I love you.'”
Kotb then changed her tune and admitted that it’s “sweet” that they send each other loving texts all day long.
Whether Bush Hager texts too much with her husband remains up for debate, but they both agreed that you should never rely on one person for everything.
“I think it’s hard when you rely on one bucket for all your needs because you’re inevitably going to be disappointed,” Kotb said. ‘Because no one can survive being the husband, the partner, the best friend. I think it’s too much for any human being.”
The Today co-hosts also discussed why women seem to have “deeper friendships” outside their marriages than men.
They pointed to a 2017 survey that found that 64 percent of married men considered their wives their best friends, but only 48 of women felt the same way.
“I just noticed this,” Bush Hager said. “It’s generally harder for men to maintain their really good friendships.”
Kotb remembered all the times she asked men what they were talking about with their friends, but she never got a straight answer.
“They say, ‘Sports? I don’t know?'” she said.
Bush Hager shared that she gets similar responses from her own husband when she asks about his conversations with friends.
“Friends are getting divorced, and I’m thinking, ‘Did he say why?’ And he says, “We haven’t talked about it,” she explained. “I’m like, ‘You didn’t talk about the whole reason you went to meet him?’