Presidentially blessed! Jenna Bush Hager and husband Henry Hager’s bond started with a White House connection — and their romance is still burning white hot more than a decade later.
The former first daughter has her father, President George W. Bush, to thank for her decades-long relationship with Hager, which began in 2004 while the Wake Forrest University alum was working on Bush’s reelection campaign.
However, the early days of their romance were also made a little more complicated due to Hager’s working relationship with his eventual father-in-law. Bush Hager recalled in November 2022 that the businessman was once caught trying to sneak out of the White House after he stayed over following a late night on the town.
“Henry said he woke up and he looked around and he was like, ‘Aaaaaaaah!’ Because he worked for my dad,” she teased during an episode of Today With Hoda & Jenna. “I was like, ‘Have fun.’ I didn’t care.”
The Sisters First: Stories From Our Wild and Wonderful Life author said that Hager “ran down” to the guarded gate exit “in his clothes from the night before” and was mortified as he tried to escape unseen. “Poor guy,” she added.
Bush Hager previously confessed in February 2021 that her “worst date” with Hager involved the Secret Service. “His car ran out of gas and went backwards and hit the Secret Service,” the daytime TV personality explained to cohost Hoda Kotb, noting that she was “laughing but he was horrified.”
Despite a few mishaps, Bush Hager was convinced the UVA Darden School of Business alum was The One and proposed to him after only three months together.
“He said no …” the Give producer confessed during a February 2020 episode of Today With Hoda & Jenna. “I might’ve had a Christmas cocktail — and we were dancing, and I said, ‘This is it, I know it, let’s just get married, what are we waiting for?’ He smiled, and he was like, ‘I’m crazy about you, but you’re young.’”
While Hager turned down the drunken proposal, he got down on one knee in 2007. The couple got hitched the following year and have since welcomed three children: Mila, Poppy and Hal.
Over the years, the late George H.W. Bush’s granddaughter has been vocal about her ups and downs as a wife and mother. In February 2019, she revealed that she often looked to her grandparents for advice on romance and proceeded to pen a love letter to Hager ahead of Valentine’s Day.
“Your love is like the Post-it note with stick figure drawings of ships passing you left for me on the bathroom mirror when I returned home late. I’d been flying most of the day and I was dehydrated, and thirsty for home, for you,” she read aloud during a Today episode at the time. “Your love is like that note. It is simple and solid and thoughtful.”
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Scroll down to see Bush Hager’s love story with her husband from the beginning:
