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Jenna Bush Hager’s seventh-grade boyfriend broke up with her after seeing her in a bathing suit

She has dealt with body insecurity since she was a teenager


Jovita Trujillo - Los Angeles
Senior WriterLos Angeles
APRIL 13, 2023 1:07 PM EDT

Jenna Bush Hager is opening up about insecurities with her body. The host recently revealed that her seventh grade boyfriend broke up with her after he saw her in a bathing suit, and even today, it still has an impact on her psyche.

TODAY   Season 72© GettyImages

The host shared her junior high break-up story while discussing Ariana Grande’s recent statement about concerns over her body. She told Hoda Kotb, “I had a boyfriend in seventh grade who broke up with me after we went swimming together after he saw me in a bathing suit.”

The 41-year-old mom of 3 explained how the moment had a long-lasting effect on her. “I feel like even sometimes now when I feel great. I have three kids, three C-sections, I feel really in my body, and I think of it as a beautiful thing, I’ll walk in a pool and have a moment,” she said, lightly gasping.

As a host, she said people make comments about her body, and it takes her back there. “Even when we’ve done the show where people have written about our body - it takes you back to that moment.”

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Bush Hager shares daughters Mila, 9, and Poppy, 7, and son Hal, 3, with husband Henry Hager and she made it clear she’s doing what she can to make sure her kids are kind and are being role models for them by practicing kindness themselves.

“All we want is loving children. We don’t need the star kid, the this, the that. We want kids that are kind,” she said.

The former first daughter has been very open when it comes to insecurities about her body. As noted by DailyMail, she shared in the past that she found a diary from fourth grade where she vowed to lose four pounds on January 1, 1991.

Her late grandma Barbara Bush, who she said she “adored”” but had “kind of a biting personality” did not help either. When she was a teenager Barbara told her she looked “chubby” while wearing a bikini. “I remember the bikini color I was wearing, a yellow bikini color,” she explained in January.

Although her grandma apologized, it had a long lasting effect on how she viewed her body. “I remember feeling like I wanted to hide in it,” she said.