Jenna Bush Hager realized pretty early on that her husband, Henry, was for her because she didn’t have to worry about being herself around him, even if she did put on a few airs while they dated.
“I do think one of the reasons why I knew really soon Henry was the one is I was completely myself and he loved it,” she told co-host Hoda Kotb Tuesday on TODAY with Hoda & Jenna.
Jenna, who celebrated her 12th anniversary with Henry last month, was not always so comfortable with her suitors, though. In fact, she recalled a time where she pretended to be something she wasn’t in order to appease an old flame.
“But in high school I had a boyfriend and I told him, ‘I love to ski. Skiing is so great.’ And I acted like I love to ski, even though I had never been skiing in my entire life,” she said.
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“And then comes Christmas and he said, ‘Well, my family’s going on a ski trip and since you love it, too, I’d love for you to go.’ And I went into my parents and I was like, ‘Mom and Dad, you know, it finally caught up with me.'”
Jenna, who has three kids with Henry, including son Hal, 9 months, and daughters Mila, 7, and Poppy, 4, said she was prepared to continue with the lie before her father stepped in.
“I was going to go to one of those indoor malls where you can learn inside, and my dad (told the boy) ... 'She don’t know how to ski. She’s never skied a day in her life.’”
“I do think you reach a certain point where you kind of are who you are, right?” she added.
Hoda agreed, saying it took some time for her to let her guard down with fiancé Joel Schiffman.
“It takes a long time, I think,” Hoda said. “Because I feel like was doing it for a long time. I mean, even with Joel, it was like, ‘No, great, no, I love carrots. Just a few. I’m so full.’ I was starving. I would go home and eat."
"Meantime, I’m watching him eat half my meal and I want to eat that so bad. Now he looks at me, we had ribs the other day. He was like, ‘Wow! You really like those.’ I go, ‘Do we have another rack? Is that it? That’s all we got?”