Jenna Bush Hager Reveals Her ‘Next Chapter’ After Her Time on Today ‘Comes to a Close’
Jason Pham
It’s been less than a year since Hoda Kotb’s exit from Today after more than a decade as one of the NBC talk show’s anchors. But could her former co-host, Jenna Bush Hager, be next?
Is Jenna Bush Hager leaving Today?
As of writing, Bush Hager is not leaving Today or her fourth-hour show, Today with Jenna & Friends, however, she does have an end in sight.
“I have this sort of dream. I just think everybody should have chapters in their lives. I have a dream. I don’t know how realistic it is, but when the Jenna & Friends chapter comes to a close… ” Bush Hager said on the Wednesday, August 6, episode of Today.
“Well, why would that ever happen?” guest co-host Matt Rogers interrupted her, to which Bush Hager responded, “Well.. linear television, baby! Who knows? But when I’m ready to go to my next chapter, I think it would be so nice to move back to Texas and let my kids—I went to a big public high school—have a different life.”
The conversation around Bush Hager’s next move after Today came when she and Rogers discussed whether they would consider moving back to their hometown. Bush Hager, who is the daughter of former President George W. Bush and First Lady Lara Bush, grew up in Austin, Texas, and said she would happily return to the city to raise her three kids with her husband, Henry Hager. The couple shares daughters Mila, 12, Poppy, 9, and son Hal, 6. “Isn’t Austin great? I love Austin,” she said.
Bush Hager’s comment about her end on Today comes after her co-host Hoda Kotb left the NBC talk show in January 2025. Bush Hager joined Today as a correspondent in 2009 before co-anchoring the show’s fourth hour alongside Kotb and Kathie Lee Gifford starting in 2019. Bush Hager and Kotb co-hosted the fourth hour, titled Today with Hoda & Jenna, until Kotb’s exit from the series to focus on her family.
“As I write this, my heart is all over the map,” Kotb wrote in a letter to the staff of Today in September 2024. “I know I’m making the right decision, but it’s a painful one. And you all are the reason why. They say two things can be right at the same time, and I’m feeling that so deeply right now. I love you and it’s time for me to leave the show.”
She continued, “My broadcast career has been beyond meaningful, a new decade of my life lies ahead, and now my daughters and my mom need and deserve a bigger slice of my time pie. I will miss you all desperately, but I’m ready and excited.”
Since Kotb’s exit, Bush Hager has had a rotating door of celebrity guest co-hosts, including Eva Longoria, Scarlett Johansson, Amy Poelher, Regina Hall, and Kelsea Ballerini, as the show looks for a permanent replacement. “We’re still searching,” Bush Hager told People in June. “We definitely want somebody permanent at some point just because that’s our show, and I think the Today show is such a family.”
She continued, “So to have somebody sit in that seat means a lot to all of us. So it will happen,” she continued. “I think we’ve all just been kind of living day by day and we don’t have any developments yet, but we will.”
