Jenna Bush Hager has opened up about her regrettable fashion choices in the ’90s, saying her parents, George W. and Laura Bush, “gave up” on her and made her wear dark purple lipstick in ninth grade.
The Today star reflected on her awkward photos from adolescence during Wednesday’s show, as she and co-host Hoda Kotb discussed the AI yearbook photo trend that has gone viral on social media.
Bush Hager, 41, and Kotb, 59, paid $9.99 to have the EPIK smartphone app take their photo and automatically generate a series of ’90s-inspired yearbook photos, but they insisted the glamorous photos were far were of reality.
‘I loved picture day but it’s so sad because when we actually had pictures of what we looked like, especially in primary school. I was kind of chubby and had glasses,” Bush Hager explained.
Jenna Bush Hager, 41, opened up about her regrettable fashion choices in the ’90s on Wednesday’s episode of the Today show
Bush Hager recalled wearing chokers and dark purple lipstick in ninth grade when her actual yearbook photo appeared on screen (right)
When a black-and-white yearbook photo of her in ninth grade appeared on the screen, she commented that she was “cuter” as a teenager.
“I like your choker. They were inside. Everyone wore them.’ Kotb said of her appearance, which was trendy at the time.
“I also wore this kind of dark purple lipstick,” Bush Hager added.
“Your parents let you do that?” Kotb asked in shock.
Bush Hager’s father was governor of Texas when she and her twin sister, Barbara Bush, started their freshman year at Austin High School in 1996.
“That was ninth grade,” Bush Hager said of her yearbook photo. “(My parents) had just completely given up at that point. Eighth grade really pushed them over the edge.”
The former first daughter didn’t go into detail about her high school years, but she previously mentioned that her sister had tried to pierce her own belly button when they were in seventh grade.
During their trip down memory lane, she admitted that in primary school she always wanted to look like someone else.
“(My parents) had just completely given up at that point. Eighth grade really put them over the edge,” Bush Hager told her co-host Hoda Kotb
Bush Hager also recalled how she always wanted to look like someone else when she was younger, saying that she had “short hair with big bangs and just a chubby little face.”
“When I was little, I wanted to be something I wasn’t, you know?” Bush Hager told Kotb. “So I pretended I had a ponytail. I always had short hair with big bangs and just a chubby face.
“I’d go in a minute,” she said, shaking her hair back and forth. “But actually no hair was lost because I had no hair.”
Kotb, who attended Fort Hunt High School in Virginia, said her hair also went “non-moving” when her yearbook photo was pulled up, prompting laughter from the live audience.
‘I’m just going to say something. That was one of the good ones. That one there was like, “Oh my God, what an amazing (photo),” she explained.
Bush Hager insisted she looks “beautiful” in the photo, but Kotb pointed out that people were still laughing — “even though it was a good one.”
“Yeah, why were you all laughing?” her co-star asked the audience, who tried to claim they weren’t laughing at her photo.
“No, it was laughter,” Kotb insisted.
“That was mean,” Bush Hager added. “We’ve been laughed at all our lives.”
Kotb, who attended Fort Hunt High School in Virginia, said her hair also went “non-moving” when her yearbook photo appeared on the screen
‘I’m just going to say something. That was one of the good ones. That one there was like, “Oh my God, what an amazing (photo),” she explained
A few days earlier, Kotb and her Today co-host Savannah Guthrie had shared that they were both huge “nerds” in high school.
While speaking to their guest Mindy Kaling on Monday’s episode of the morning show, they revealed that neither of them attended their prom, saying no one ever asked them.
The admissions came after Kotb Kaling, 44, started jokingly grilling about her teenage years.
‘Were you a little nerdy in high school? What was your vibe?’ Kotb asked the actress, who jokingly replied, “How dare you?”
“I was popular and cool,” Kaling continued with mock outrage, before admitting, “I was a huge nerd. Books were my escape.”
The Office alumnus then assured the Today hosts that she didn’t think any of them would have been nerdy – a misconception they immediately refuted.
After a chorus of “we were,” Guthrie joked, “I didn’t go to the ball!”
Kotb then made the same revelation, leaving Kaling stunned.
The Mindy Project star admitted that despite considering herself a nerd, she attended her own prom not once, but twice.
“We beat you in the nerd department,” Guthrie joked.