Jenna Bush Hager kicked off her first episode as the lead host of Today With Jenna & Friends with a pep talk as she prepared to host the fourth hour of Today without Hoda Kotb for the very first time.
The broadcast began with a skit performed by Bush Hager in her dressing room before she joined her first guest host, Taraji P. Henson, on set.
“Okay JBH, it’s a new show. It’s a new era. You got this!” she told herself in the mirror. “My mind is clear, my heart is full. I haven’t been this nervous since that Texas production of Les Mis. Is this really happening?” She later sounded like she was choking back tears as she asked Henson during the skit, “Is it happening?”
But the first episode of Today With Jenna & Friends went off without a hitch as Henson and Bush Hager spoke to Christian Soriano and mental health specialist Jillian Turecki.
Later on in the broadcast, Bush Hager explained to Henson that she was in her “dating era” for the very first time as she searches for a new co-host amid Kotb’s retirement. Bush Hager will be hosting Today With Jenna & Friends with several celebrity co-hosts, including Scarlett Johansson, Keke Palmer and Michelle Buteau, until she settles on her next partner in crime.
“I mean, you just saw me in that room terribly acting,” she joked. “When you have a team like this team and we have built a show, Hoda and I, that feels like something I’m proud of. It feels exciting.”
She continued, “I mean, I was a child bride. I got married at 26 years old. Not too [young], but childish.” Bush Hager married Henry Hager, who worked on her father’s 2004 presidential campaign, in 2008. Kotb often teased Bush Hager about being a “child bride” on the show before her retirement.
Henson agreed, adding, “Yeah, that’s pretty much— that’s a child.”
Bush Hager explained, “So, I haven’t really dated. This is kind of my dating era and you’re my first date. I’m blushing.”
Henson will return to co-host Jenna & Friends on Friday (Jan. 17).
Today With Jenna & Friends airs weekdays at 10/9c on NBC.
The post Jenna Bush Hager Says She’s “Dating” For The First Time In Her Life During Her Search For Hoda Kotb’s ‘Today’ Replacement: “I Was A Child Bride, I Got Married At 26” appeared first on Decider.
