Today’s Jenna Bush Hager Cries On-Air in Emotional Motherhood Moment
From the heart of New York City, it’s Jenna Bush Hager getting candid about being a working mom.
The Today anchor—who shares kids Mila, 13, Poppy, 10, and Hal, 6, with husband Henry Hager—got emotional on air as she detailed balancing motherhood with her professional career.
“I have been working a lot because this has been shooting, and then I’ve had these big interviews and then all the book stuff,” Jenna told co-host Sheinelle Jones during the April 30 episode of Today with Jenna and Sheinelle, “and so this morning when I woke up, I thought, ‘OK, the next couple weeks, the next couple months, it’s like kid-focused.’”
“I’m like, how can I show up for Poppy in a way—now I’m crying,” she added before tearing up. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
But Jenna—whose stacked schedule has included reporting on the daytime show, appearing in the Devil Wears Prada 2 and working as a producer on NBC’s Protection among other professional ventures—wasn’t in it alone.
After all, Sheinelle swiftly embraced the journalist into a hug as she regained her composure.
“We’re OK,” Jenna, 44, quipped, before she jokingly added, “It may look like everything’s great, but things are falling apart.”
And Sheinelle—mom to three kids with her late husband Uche Ojeh—felt where her colleague was coming from.
“We can’t do it all at once,” Sheinelle reassured her, “but we’re doing it.”
Photo by Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images
Recently, Sheinelle, 48, shared how the Today family—including Jenna, Savannah Guthrie, Al Roker and Craig Melvin—lift one another up. In fact, their bond was never more on display than when Uche was battling glioblastoma, a form of brain cancer, before his death in May 2025.
“When my husband was sick, they were my family,” Sheinelle told E! News in an interview published May 2. “Al was bringing breakfast sandwiches into hospice for us, Savannah was right with us after the first surgery.”
She emphasized of their chemistry that audiences have come to love on TV, “It’s not just pretend.”
Nathan Congleton/NBC via Getty Images
In fact, Sheinelle’s Today colleagues were by her side for the 18 months Uche was battling the illness, even before the world knew what her family was going through.
“We do it when no one’s watching,” she said, pointing out that publicly, “nobody knew what I was going through—they all knew. Every day I was never alone. They were always there helping the kids, helping me with dinner.”
Sheinelle added, “When it’s time to rally around each other, we do it.”
For a look into the Today family photo album, read on…
Photo by: Nathan Congleton/NBC via Getty Images
Sheinelle Jones
The cohost of the fourth hour of Today shares son Kayin as well as twins Uche and Clara with her late husband Uche Ojeh, who passed away in May 2025 after a courageous battle with brain cancer.
“With all three of my children, I try to show them that they’re ALL a team, and they have to take care of each other,” Sheinelle wrote in a 2015 essay for Today. “At the same time, I’m learning that they each like to know they’re special on their own.”
Craig Melvin / Instagram
Craig Melvin
Three years after the anchor married fellow broadcaster Lindsay Czarniak in 2011, he earned his most cherished title yet: father.
And now, he seizes every opportunity to gush about their son Delano and daughter Sybil.
“When I wake up in the morning,” Melvin said to his son during a May 2024 episode of Today, “part of the reason I work so hard is for you and your sister.”
Jenna Bush Hager / Instagram
Jenna Bush Hager
The Today with Jenna & Sheinelle cohost and her husband Henry Hager are proud parents to kids Mila, Poppy and Hal.
As she put it during a March 2025 episode of the morning show, “I’m pretty sure I’ve come to terms that three, even though it’s an imperfect number, it’s the perfect number for our household.”
Hoda Kotb
“Another Halloween in the books,” wrote the former host as she celebrated the day with her daughter Haley Joy.
She is also mom to daughter Hope Catherine.
Lester Holt / Instagram
Lester Holt
The former NBC Nightly News anchor shares sons Stefan Holt and Cameron Holt with his wife Carol Hagen.
But more recently, he became a proud “granddude” to three grandchildren: Henry, Samuel and James.
“When my daughter-in-law was pregnant with her first baby … she said, ‘Well, what do you guys want to be called?’” Holt said on The Kelly Clarkson Show in 2021. “I said, ‘I think I want to be ‘Granddude’ because ‘grand,’ it bows to the fact that I’m older. But ‘dude’ says, ‘I still got a little bit. I still got a little,’ you know?”
Carson Daly
In 2020, the anchor and his wife Siri Pinter welcomed their fourth child, Goldie. The little one joined the couple’s older kids Jackson, Etta and London.
Steve Mack/Getty Images
Kathie Lee
Hoda’s former cohost is a loving mommy to her own two children, Cassidy Gifford and Cody Gifford, with her late husband Frank Gifford.
Savannah Guthrie
The TV personality is a mom to two little ones, Vale Guthrie Feldman and Charles “Charley” Max Feldman, with her husband Mike Feldman.
Noam Galai/WireImage
Al Roker
The anchor and his wife Deborah Roberts are parents to Leila Roker and Nicholas Albert Roker.
Paul Zimmerman/WireImage
Willie Geist
The anchor of Sunday Today has been married to his wife Christina Geist since 2003. They’re parents to two children, George William Geist and Lucie Joy Geist.
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