President George W. Bush‘s twin daughters just wanted to be regular freshmen when they went off to college in 2000, the same year their father was elected, Jenna Bush Hager told People magazine in an interview published on Wednesday.
“We were 18, and he knew how badly we wanted just to go to college and live normal lives,” she said. “That was his promise to us: ‘Don’t worry. You can live normal lives.’ Which ended up not being exactly true. We were maybe all slightly naive, to be honest.”
While her college experience wasn’t entirely ordinary, Bush Hager said she turned down a call from Katie Holmes, who was doing research for her role in the 2004 film “First Daughter,” because she didn’t think her life was interesting enough. In the movie, Holmes played Samantha Mackenzie, the daughter of the US president who strives to have a normal college experience amid Secret Service protection and paparazzi photos.
“I was at the library and living a normal life as a college freshman,” Bush Hager said. “I felt she would be disappointed with whatever she saw.”
In 2004, Bush Hager graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a degree in English, while her twin, Barbara, majored in humanities at Yale. Bush Hager began working as a correspondent for NBC News in 2009, and she now co-hosts “Today with Hoda & Jenna” with Hoda Kotb.
Jenna Bush Hager said she turned down a call from Katie Holmes. Jenna Bush Hager said she turned down a call from Katie Holmes