Despite being unapologetically themselves on the Today show, Jenna Bush Hager and Hoda Kotb faced some struggles to be able to do so.
“If you don’t fit, they want you to wear something a certain way, cut your hair a certain way, speak a certain way,” Kotb, 60, stated while discussing how people shouldn’t change to fit certain roles on the Monday, December 2, episode of Today With Hoda & Jenna. Addressing Bush Hager, 43, she added: “I know when you came to the network, too, it’s like, ‘Welcome in, but you have to change.’”
Bush Hager went on to reveal that NBC did not want her using a particular phrase on air when she joined Today as a correspondent in 2009. “[They were like], ‘Hey, y’all,’ isn’t for the whole country.’ And I was like, ‘Well, but it’s who I am,’” the Texas native shared. “It’s so weird, and this happens in life too. If you have friends and then, all of a sudden, you’re acting not who you are, and you’re like, ‘Wait,’ something in your gut feels wrong.”
Kotb noted that it took the two of them “a long time” to learn to be themselves on the show, telling her cohost, “It took me longer than, I think, it took you.” (Kotb joined NBC as a Dateline correspondent in 1998 before making her Today hosting debut in 2007.)
Reflecting on her “y’all” story, Bush Hager continued: “When they said, ‘You can’t say y’all,’ in my gut, I was like, ‘But why? We have to pretend to be news people?’ Because whenever you pretend to be a news person, I felt like I was acting. And we all know from [our Titanic Halloween skit], I’m not a great actor. When you try to pretend you’re somebody else, it feels crazy.”
Kotb agreed, stating that pretending to be someone you’re not can feel like “losing who you are.”
Over the years, Bush Hager has let her personality shine on the NBC morning show, especially since taking on her role as Kotb’s fourth hour of Today cohost in 2019. She has also shown off her love of her home state, taking the show down to Austin for a pair of special Texas Takeover episodes in October.
“Austin was my home from middle school through college. I could not leave. I had to go to [the University of Texas at Austin],” Bush Hager said on the October 24 episode of Hoda & Jenna. “I have lived out of Texas longer than I lived in it, and yet, it is still in every bone of my body. I love it so much.”
Kotb is set to depart Today in January 2025, after which Bush Hager will continue to host the fourth hour as Today With Jenna & Friends with rotating guest hosts until a permanent replacement is picked. Craig Melvin will take over Kotb’s role as Savannah Guthrie’s news coanchor.
“Whoever sits in this seat is going to have the easiest job in the world ’cause they’re sitting next to you,” Kotb told her cohost after announcing her exit on the September 26 episode of Today. “The only thing they have to do is not laugh so hard they pee their pants. That’s it.
They just have to hang on.”
