CHILDHOOD AGONY EXPOSED: Today Show Star Jenna Bush Hager Leaves Viewers STUNNED As She Breaks Silence On George H.W. Bush’s Harsh Rules And A Dark “Unspoken” Family Secret That Haunted Her Youth And Still Casts A SHADOW Today

Jenna Bush Hager remembers many meaningful life lessons she learned from her late grandparents, former President George H.W. Bush and First Lady Barbara Bush. Whether they were sharing their secret to their long marriage or enforcing a simple rule for the White House kitchen, the TODAY co-host clearly took note. In fact, she memorized a valuable “list of rules” her grandfather lived by.

Throughout his life, Bush Hager’s grandfather taught her to enjoy life, and she remembers the former POTUS as a humble, kind man. “He was gentle,” she shared on TODAY on what would have been his 100th birthday. “He led with kindness. He wanted to be the type of leader that listened.”

Jenna Bush Hager’s grandfather George H.W. Bush lived by a “list of rules”

During a June 2020 “unscripted” segment of TODAY, Bush Hager shared with her former co-host Hoda Kotb that her late grandfather, who she called “Gampy,” lived by a “list of rules” that she still remembers today.

“My grandpa, who lived until he was 94, I’ll never forget …  He had this little list of rules that he lived by and they’re all really good ones,” she said. “Like don’t talk all the time. Listen, listen to your mentors and friends and learn from them. I actually have them memorized, which is kind of weird.”

Another rule? “Nobody likes an overbearing big shot, which sounds so much like his words,” Bush Hager shared.

“Help a friend when they’re hurting,” the TODAY co-anchor added as she began to choke up. “And one of them, which obviously I listen to a lot is it’s OK to cry when life takes a bad turn or when a friend hurts.”

Bush Hager then shared what she remembers from one of their last moments together. “We were sitting in Maine one night around the dinner table, it was the last summer of his life. And he looked at me and he couldn’t hear very well, so he wasn’t as much part of the conversation, and he loved conversations. He loved conversations where there were agreements, where there were disagreements with friends, with, you know, ‘political enemies’ who became his friends,” she told Kotb. “He leaned over to me, and he could barely speak and he said, ‘Don’t forget to enjoy the game.’”

“It broke my heart into a thousand pieces because what he meant was life is meant to be enjoyed and celebrated,” she added, urging everyone to “ask your grandparents for advice.”

Jenna Bush Hager remembers her grandfather as an “unbelievably humble” man

Beyond memorizing her grandfather’s wise advice, Bush Hager also has lovely memories of her childhood with him when he was the President of the United States. When Bush Hager attended his inauguration in 1989, when she was about 7 years old, she and her twin sister, Barbara Pierce Bush, didn’t even realize he was being sworn in to the lead the nation.

“When you’re in first grade, you don’t quite realize the gravity,” Bush Hager shared on TODAY in 2020. “Like Barbara and I were just so excited to be with our cousins and to get to go to this magical place — the Capitol. We kind of thought all grandpas got inaugurated. Just because our grandfather was particularly humble, he didn’t act more important than anybody else, and so it was such a fun memory.”

Years before the former president passed away in 2018, Bush Hager shared in a post for TODAY that her grandfather taught her about “humility.”

“My grandfather is an unbelievably humble man. He never talks about his accomplishments; instead, he asks others about their lives. That is part of his charm,” she wrote in 2013. “He’s taught me a lot about humility and sharing successes.”