Jenna Bush Hager has opened up about how her father’s own struggles with alcohol helped her talk to her 10-year-old daughter Mila about Matthew Perry’s death.
On the Today show Monday, she and Hoda Kotb remembered the late Friends star, who died Saturday at the age of 54 in an apparent drowning, although an official cause of death has not yet been determined.
The cohosts discussed Perry’s addiction to drugs and alcohol, which he wrote candidly about in his 2022 memoir, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing.
Bush Hager, 41, told how her father, former President George W. Bush, stopped drinking when she and her twin sister, Barbara Bush, were young children.
Jenna Bush Hager, 41, opened up on the Today show Monday about her father’s struggles with alcohol, recalling how he stopped drinking when she was five
Bush Hager is pictured with her parents, George W. and Laura Bush, and her twin sister, Barbara Bush, in 1987, the year after her father quit drinking
‘My father stopped drinking when I was five. I don’t remember him ever drinking in my presence, even though he did,” she told Kotb, 59, of her father’s past alcohol abuse.
‘And it’s interesting what it does for the conversation if you have someone in your family who has alcohol problems. I feel like some households probably talked about Matthew Perry and kept it quiet in front of the kids.”
Bush Hager explained that her eldest daughter, Mila, struggled to understand why Perry’s death was considered tragic when he was so loved.
“Mila said, ‘Why is it so sad? He was a comedian. Everyone loved him. Why?'” she recalled. ‘And I said, “Mila, he had a lot of addiction problems.”
Perry was found underwater in his hot tub by his assistant, who lifted his head in an attempt to give him some air. But by the time the Los Angeles Fire Department arrived at his home in the Pacific Palisades, he was already dead.
First responders reportedly found antidepressants and anti-anxiety medications in the building, but there were no signs of illegal drugs.
The Los Angeles County coroner has listed Perry’s cause of death as “deferred” pending final toxicology test results.
The actor, who was best known for his role as Chandler Bing on Friends, has been open about his struggles with opiates and alcohol, but said in recent interviews that he was clean.
The mother explained that her father’s alcohol problems helped her talk to her 10-year-old daughter Mila about Matthew Perry’s death
Perry died Saturday at the age of 54 from an apparent drowning, although an official cause of death has not yet been determined. He has been outspoken about his battle with opioids and alcohol, but said in recent interviews that he was clean
Bush Hager encouraged other parents to talk to their children about the harmful effects of alcohol and drugs.
“I’m not an expert on parenting, but I do feel like we need to talk to our kids about what alcohol and drugs (do) – and not glorify it because they can see that on TV too,” said she.
“If there’s something like that, (you need) to have a conversation about it,” Kotb agreed. “Anything that’s secret will be a problem.”
Bush Hager noted that there is “shame” associated with substance abuse that prevents people from being open about it.
“I want to be the opposite of being 12 and feeling so alone drinking like that,” she said. “I want them to know that if there’s alcohol there, it’s not good for you, especially for children.”
Bush Hager’s father struggled with alcohol for years before quitting drinking, although he does not identify as an alcoholic. In 1976, he was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol near his parents’ home in Kennebunkport, Maine.
“I’m not an expert on parenting, but I do feel like we need to talk to our kids about what alcohol and drugs (do),” Bush Hager told her co-host Hoda Kotb
Kotb, 59, agreed with Bush Hager and said: ‘Anything that is secret is going to be a problem’
The former president has spoken candidly about how he quit alcohol cold turkey in 1986 after a boozy 40th birthday weekend.
Bush credited the late Rev. Billy Graham with giving him the strength to quit after meeting the evangelist in the 1980s.
“God’s work in me began in earnest with Billy’s help. His care and teachings were the real beginning of my faith walk – and the beginning of the end of my drinking,” he wrote in the Wall Street Journal in 2018.
‘I couldn’t have given up alcohol on my own. But in 1986, at the age of 40, I finally found the strength to quit. That strength came from the love I had felt from my earliest youth, and from the faith I only fully discovered in my later years.”
Bush Hager unveiled the candid conversation she had with her father about his drinking during the Today show in 2020.
She remembered how he had taken her aside when she was younger to warn her that alcohol could control her life, because it had.
‘I will never forget. I was in Maine for my cousin’s wedding when we were in our early 20s, and in your early 20s you go out. At a wedding you celebrate and stay late,” she explained.
Bush Hager revealed the conversation she had with her father about his drinking on the Today show in 2020, saying he took her aside to warn her that alcohol could take over her life
“I’ll never forget we were walking, and he said, ‘I just want you to know that there was a point in my life where I thought this was interrupting the beauty,'” she recalled. They are pictured at his inauguration in 2001
“My dad said, ‘Let’s go for a walk.’ And we went for a walk and he said, “You know, I just want to talk to you about drinking. I noticed in my life that it was getting in the way of the things that mattered most, and I want to make sure that you just know that it is possible and be aware of it.’
“I think at that moment I was probably like, ‘I’m not even that hungover,’ or whatever it was,” she admitted. “But I do think it was an example for me of how I want to parent, which is to be transparent about things that have happened in our family’s past or things that might happen to your children.”
The conversation likely took place during her cousin George P. Bush’s wedding to Amanda Williamson, which took place in Maine in 2004, when she and her sister were 22.
“I’ll never forget we were walking and he said, ‘I just want you to know that there was a point in my life where I thought this interrupted the beauty,’” she repeated.
“He didn’t go to AA. He didn’t, even though it helped so many people,” she added. “But he just knew it was disrupting his dreams and his parenting.”
Kotb pointed out “how profound” it was that the former president shared his story with his daughter, as many people would likely be too afraid to make themselves vulnerable in that way.
‘I’ve always appreciated it. I still do,” Bush Hager said, noting that her father’s words about the dangers of alcohol have made her more cautious about her own drinking habits.
“Parenting sucks and can be hard, and it can be easy to open that bottle of wine at 5 o’clock on a Monday, but I find myself having those conversations,” she explained. “I try not to do that, for my kids and for me.”