Jenna Bush Hager broke down in tears on Monday morning as she recalled moving out of her old family apartment and the grief she felt at leaving the home where she had weathered so many ‘hard things’, including the deaths of her grandparents.
During the latest episode of Today with Hoda & Jenna, Hoda Kotb confirmed that she and her two daughters, Haley and Hope, are moving this week and she was feeling emotional about leaving her upper Manhattan apartment because it’s the place she ‘brought her babies home to.’
Jenna, 42, sympathized completely and opened up about the last time she moved with her husband Henry Hager and their three young children: ‘We moved two years ago and it was really hard for me. It was very hard, I didn’t expect it to be so hard, but there was one night we sat on our couch in the empty apartment – all of us, the family.
‘We sat there and it was just this moment… my kids are so used to me showing emotions – I wonder what it’s going to do to them – but I was just weeping because I thought the same thing, we brought our babies home to this place. Henry and I had weathered beautiful things and hard things…’
Referring to the loss of her father’s parents Barbara Pierce and George H. W. Bush, who died in April and November 2018 respectively, Jenna continued: ‘I lost my grandparents in that apartment, and my girls drew stick figures and made me feel better,’ before wiping away tears.
Jenna Bush Hager broke down in tears on Monday as she recalled moving out of her old family apartment two years ago
Both Jenna and her Today cohost Hoda Kotb became tearful as they opened the show
‘What it does is, it distinctly marks time. You don’t normally get to think, “Oh my gosh, here we are, here I’m going,” and that’s what it does,’ the mother-of-three added whilst trying to compose herself.
Hoda opened up: ‘We’re moving from an apartment to another place, and it just struck me this weekend…
‘I literally was sitting at my desk this morning, where I sit every single morning, I light a candle, I have my journal, I do my stuff, and I thought to myself, “This is the last Monday I’ll be sitting at this desk,” because we’re moving this week.
‘I was thinking about it. Both Haley and Hope came home there, and I remember them trying to crawl up the stairs, and I remember now how they race up and down.
‘And I was thinking about the very first time we brought them home and carried them up those stairs in the car seat and all the things that happened there… and I was looking through old videos of them, when they were so little.
‘It’s like, you want to hold on to things and you want to let go, and when I saw these videos of them when they were kids, little babies, I can’t believe I have a seven and a five-year-old and I can’t believe we have all of those memories.
‘We had Christmas’ and Thanksgivings, there were so many things that we have built there and I know it’s just a place…’ Hoda added.
Referring to what Jenna had said about sitting on the sofa in her empty apartment before leaving, Hoda became teary-eyed herself and said: ‘I think what you did, which is important and it’s something I want to do too, is, take a second.
‘Don’t race through it, don’t race through transitions, don’t race through endings and saying, “Let’s just wish it away.” Sit and take a minute and look around, like you guys did on that couch that day.’
Jenna and her sister Barbara pictured with their grandfather and former President George H. W. Bush and his wife Barbara Pierce
Jenna and her husband Henry Hager moved into their current home two years ago with their three children Poppy, Mila, and Hal
Hoda and her two daughters Hope and Haley are moving out of their Manhattan apartment this week
With her voice breaking again, Jenna replied: ‘And it’s gonna hurt a little, but it’s okay. Because why it hurts is because it was so beautiful, because all of your dreams came true in that place.’
Trying to make light of the emotional moment, she the shouted out: ‘What is happening, y’all?! It’s a Monday, but we’ve had it! We’ve just had it!’
Hoda and Jenna are no strangers to showing emotion live on air, and three months ago, the 59-year-old broke down in tears as she opened up about her younger daughter Hope’s terrifying health scare.
Hope, now five, spent time in hospital and the ICU back in February 2023 due to an undisclosed health issue.