Jenna Bush Hager Says Grandma Barbara Bush Body-Shamed Her When She Was A Teen

Jenna Bush Hager said she experienced body-shaming from a family member.

During an episode of "Today with Hoda and Jenna" last week, Bush Hager and her co-host Hoda Kotb were discussing Billie Eilish's recent Vogue conversation about body image when the former shared a comment from her late grandma Barbara Bush that influenced her perception about her body.

The journalist, 41, recalled how Barbara, who passed away in 2018, once called her "chubby" when she wore a bikini during her teen years.

"I remember being a teenager. I remember the bikini color that I was wearing, a yellow bikini color," she shared on the show. "I was laying next to my sister [Barbara Bush], and my grandmother, who I adored, but had kind of a biting personality, said something like, 'Oh, Jenna! Looking chubby.'"

The mother of three admitted, "I remember feeling like I wanted to hide in it."

Bush Hager said her grandmother apologized to her years after the comment and explained to her that she had been "talking to" herself when she made the remark to her granddaughter.

"She later told me her mother [Pauline Pierce] said those types of things to her. Her mother always thought of her sister as the really beautiful one and would say it," Bush Hager said of her grandmother. "'Martha's the pretty one, you're the funny one, you're the smart one. Martha's this one, you're that one.'"

Kotb noted that some parents would comment on their children's outfits being too tight when they fit just fine. The co-hosts agreed that parents may be trying to protect their children "from the pain" they experienced during their own childhood.

Despite understanding where her grandmother's comments stemmed from, Bush Hager said she still didn't "wear a bikini for years" — until she rocked a two-piece swimsuit in 2022.

"After having three kids, three C-sections, [I did it]," said Bush Hager, who shares daughters Mila, 9, and Poppy, 7, and son Hal, 3, with her husband, Henry Hager.

In her interview with Vogue, Eilish opened up about how she developed body positivity after being in a darker place when she was growing up.

"Going through my teenage years of hating myself and all that stupid s---," she told the magazine, "a lot of it came from my anger towards my body, and how mad I was at how much pain it's caused me, and what I've lost because of things that happened to it."

"I felt like my body was gaslighting me for years," she admitted.

To get to the other side of those feelings, the "Bad Guy" hitmaker said she "had to go through a process of being like, my body is actually me. And it's not out to get me."