Jenna Bush Hager Reflects on Growing Up in the Shadow of Her Smarter Sister Barbara: ‘I Couldn’t Even Add 3+3’

Jenna Bush Hager has a close bond with her twin sister, Barbara, but they seem to have had very different experiences growing up. THE Today the host said Hoda Kotb all this on Friday’s (November 29) show as they debated whether siblings should still be invited to the same events.

Bush Hager said that as a twin, she could understand that children aren’t always invited to the same events as their siblings.

“I will say that as a twin, things aren’t always going to work out perfectly for both of them,” she told Kotb. “I mean, my sister went to Yale, okay? I didn’t even apply to an Ivy League school.

She continued, “And it wasn’t like my parents were like, ‘Let’s hope Jenna’s feelings weren’t hurt.’ It was life.

Bush Hager added that his sister even won a math competition when she was growing up. “I couldn’t even add 3+3!” she said. “But I think you just have to embrace every child. We were definitely invited to different things. She explained that her mother also took them to events that interested them.

“It wasn’t all together,” Kotb said.

Bush Hager spoke at length about how his college experience differed from that of his sister. On a previous show, she and Kotb discussed how being rejected from colleges is a “rite of passage” for teenagers.

“It happens to almost everyone except my sister Barbara Bush,” she said. According to Bush Hager, his sister “found herself every school she applied to.”

She also once admitted on the show that she tried to follow in her sister’s footsteps at Stanford University, where she thought she would be automatically accepted because she thought they had a “policy of twinning”.

“If one twin comes in, they automatically let the other one in because they don’t want to crush souls,” she told Kotb. People.

But his father did not agree with the project. He was “the opposite of college admissions scandal,” she joked. He allegedly discouraged her from applying, telling her: “’No, that’s not the case. Don’t ruin his chances! »

Today with Hoda and Jenna airs weekdays at 10/9c on NBC.