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Jenna Bush Hager has opened up about how her late grandmother Barbara Bush told her she looked ‘chubby’ in a bikini as a teenager, only to apologize for the cutting comment years later.
The 41-year-old Today presenter was discussing body image with her co-host Hoda Kotb at a recent episode of the show when he reflected on a time in his teenage years that negatively affected his confidence.
‘I remember I was a teenager. I remember the color of the bikini he was wearing, a yellow bikini,’ he said. ‘He was lying next to my sister [Barbara Bush]and my grandmother, who I adored but had a bit of a biting personality, was like, “Oh, Jenna! You look chubby.”
Jenna Bush Hager, 41, opened up about how her late grandmother Barbara Bush called her “chubby” as a teenager during a recent episode of the Today show.
The Today presenter (pictured with her grandmother and her twin Barbara in 2000) recalled how she was wearing a yellow bikini and lying next to her sister at the time.
Bush Hager recalled how her grandmother’s passing remark had impacted the way she viewed herself in her formative years.
“I remember feeling like I wanted to hide in it,” she said.
Bush Hager didn’t find out until years later that her grandmother had been projecting her own insecurities onto her.
The former first lady had faced similar comments from her own mother, Pauline Pierce, who often compared her to her older sister, Martha Pierce, according to her granddaughter.
“My grandmother, who I adored, but who had a bit of a biting personality, was like, ‘Oh, Jenna! You look chubby,” recalled Bush Hager (pictured with a friend before prom).
Bush Hager has never forgotten the scathing comment or how he felt at the time. “I remember feeling like I wanted to hide in it,” she explained.
“She told me later that her mother told her those kinds of things,” Bush Hager explained. ‘Her mother of hers always thought of her sister as the really beautiful one and she said so. “Martha is the pretty one. You are the funny one. You are the smart one. Martha is this one. You are that one.”
‘And so, late [in] life, she said, “You know, when I told you those things, I was talking to myself.”
Bush Hager has been candid about how she and her fraternal twin Barbara were constantly compared growing up, though she noted that her parents, George W. and Laura Bush, never did that to them.
She and her husband, Henry Hager, now have three children of their own: Mila, nine, Poppy, seven, and Hal, three.
Bush Hager told her co-host Hoda Kotb that she didn’t find out until years later that her grandmother had been projecting her own insecurities onto her.
The former first lady (center) had faced similar comments from her own mother, Pauline Pierce (left), who often compared her to her older sister, Martha Pierce (right).
Bush Hager has been candid about how she and her fraternal twin Barbara were constantly compared to each other by the outside world as children.
Bush Hager and Kotb agreed that seemingly innocent looks and comments from adults can affect a child’s body image.
“It’s interesting because I haven’t worn a bikini for years, and last year, after having three kids, I had three C-sections. [I did]’ Bush Hager told his co-host. ‘I did it for you because you don’t have that anymore.’
Kotb noted that she was raised by a mother who “never cared” how she looks in a bathing suit and still wears a bikini to this day.
She says, “Of course, I need sun,” she said, imitating her mother, Sameha.
In 2016, Bush Hager found a fourth-grade journal entry promising to lose four pounds on January 1, 1991. “That broke my heart,” he admitted.
Jenna Bush Hager and her husband, Henry Hager, have three children: Mila, Poppy, and Hal.
In 2016, Bush Hager was faced with the realization that she had been obsessed with dieting and weight loss long before she was a teenager.
He explained on the Today show that he was at the Bush family home in Texas over the holidays when he found his diary.
After reading the entries, he was surprised to see that he had vowed to lose four pounds on January 1, 1991.
“That broke my heart,” he admitted. ‘And my sister told me that she found it four years before, but she never told me because she broke her heart.’