Today’s Jenna Bush Hager Shares Heartbreaking Family Loss: ‘I Just Felt Like It Was Kind of My Fault’
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Today show co-host Jenna Bush Hager recently shared the tragic loss of a dear family member and explained how they’ve coped with the devastating situation. During the October 2 episode of Today, she spoke about her 11-year-old daughter Mila’s cat, who went missing.
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“This summer, there was some beautiful things that happened and one slightly heartbreaking thing in our family, which is that our beloved cat, Hollywood Hager, went missing,” Bush Hager said. She shared how she was ridden with guilt over the ordeal. “I just felt like it was kind of my fault,” she noted.
The cat went missing during a birthday party for one of her daughters because kids kept coming and going, “with the door wide open.” She also explained that they had “been waiting… and not just waiting,” adding, “I mean, doing everything trying to find the kitty. Everything you could possibly think of.” They even left their door unlocked and open some nights, hopeful that the cat would return.
“Is that insane?” she said. “We’ve done everything we could.”
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Bush Hager asked her husband Henry if he thought there might have been a reason it happened. “I said to Henry after it happened, I said, ‘Do you think this is happening because right before Mila goes into middle school and that kind of funky pre-teenage time, she and I have just bonded in a way?'” she recalled.
The Today co-host added, “I mean, for the first three nights that the cat was gone, she slept with me. And we had these conversations around, you know, all of these really beautiful things about life, about love, about pain, about loss. And I could be there for her, and she could be there for me.”
Now that they have moved past the loss of their pet, Bush Hager said they are now adopting a kitten. “I mean, and I know some of y’all are just gonna be like, ‘It’s just a cat.’ But what it is, is watching a child’s heart hurt,” she shared. “And so anyway, we went on Sunday and we met a little baby kitty, which Mila is going to be adopting. So we’re gonna have a new member of our household.”
She added, “And hopefully, Holly will come smell that little kitty and be like, ‘Who’s getting in there with my parents,’ you know? And come back.”
Her co-host, Hoda Kotb, added, “If you’re listening, you’re probably like, ‘Wait, wait, they lost a cat, and now they’ve found another cat?’ This has been over the course of many months and a lot of pain happened.”
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She noted, “And every day that Jenna stood here, and sometimes right before we went on, you were crying — not just about the loss of your cat, but about Mila, your kids. She even told Today with Hoda & Jenna guests — every single guest who came in” about the cat.
Bush Hager’s daughter definitely struggled in dealing with the loss. “I would get texts, I would get a message. Mila would have her computer for school, and she would say, ‘Mommy, I miss her so much,'” the co-host recalled.
The new kitten is easing some of the pain, however. “She met the little kitty, and she said to me, ‘I haven’t stopped thinking about her all day,’” Bush Hager said.
For more on morning shows, check out who Good Morning America‘s hosts and anchors are dating or married to in real life.
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