Jenna Bush Hager Claims Ex-Boyfriend Once Left Her After Seeing Her in a Swimsuit

Jenna Bush Hager quite the unpleasant episode of body shaming before finally learning to love her body and her soul. “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,” dished the former first daughter during Wednesday’s Today With Hoda and Jenna segment. The duo talked about Ariana Grande’s response to online body shaming, sparking the personal admission.

“It’s so interesting because people really do hit you right where it hurts.” In addition, Bush Hager shared on the Today show that she still deals with self-consciousness following the remarks of her ex-boyfriend. “I feel like, even sometimes now, when I feel great — I have three kids [who were born via] 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 [of panic],” Hager, 44, revealed on Wednesday. Hager shares Mila, 9, Poppy, 7, and Hal, 3, with her husband. “There’s been times when we’ve done this show when people have written about our body and it takes you back to that moment.”

Bush Hager said she teaches her three children to be respectful even as she avoids worrying about outside criticism. “All we want is loving children. We don’t need the star kid, the this, the that. We want kids that are kind,” she noted during the live show. “The way you do that is model it.” In a candid conversation with her 58-year-old cohost about body positivity, Bush Hager revealed how she teaches her children empathy, which “not everyone is born with. “I sometimes think of people as parents, like, ‘You know what, maybe he had news today about his child?’ Even if he’s not one, but like that kind of stress [or] imagine him holding a baby, and then it helps you have empathy for whoever it is,” Bush Hager explained. Despite years of childhood struggles, Bush Hager has been candid about learning to accept her body as one of the twin daughters of former president George W. Bush and former first lady Laura Bush.

During her teenage years, Bush Hager wanted to “hide” after her grandmother Barbara Bush body-shamed her. While wearing a yellow bikini, Bush Hager’s grandparent said she looked “chubby,” Bush Hager recently shared on a February episode of the Today show. The journalist clarified last week that she “adored” her family member, who passed away in 2018, despite her “biting personality.” In her apology to Bush Hager years after the comment, the former first lady explained that she had been “talking to herself” since her mother, Pauline Pierce, had spoken to her like that as a child. “Her mother always thought of her sister as the really beautiful one and would say it,” Bush Hager said. “‘Martha’s the pretty one. You’re the funny one. You’re the smart one.’” Despite the apology, Bush Hager didn’t “wear a bikini for years,” until 2022, when she finally wore a two-piece bathing suit. “After having three kids, three C-sections, [I did it],” said the former teacher.