Jenna Bush Hager Reveals an Incident That ‘Really Rubbed’ Late Grandmother Barbara Bush ‘the Wrong Way’

Jenna Bush Hager recalled the time her late grandmother, former First Lady Barbara Bush, wrote her a letter scolding her for exhibiting bad sportsmanship.

The journalist, 44, spoke about the family moment during the Thursday, June 25 episode of Today with Jenna & Sheinelle, while beginning by explaining, “I’m competitive, and I like performance around competition.”

Jenna recalled a performance from when her grandparents were alive, in which she was playing tennis and began doing the worm dance while shouting at her opponent, “Not today!”

“My dad, [former president George W. Bush], thought it was very funny, and he’d be like, ‘That’s my girl!’” she shared. However, her grandmother was not a fan of her conduct.

At that point, Jenna revealed a key detail about the story that shocked her cohost, Sheinelle Jones. “I was a mother of multiple children at this point,“ she revealed. ”I’m an adult. Full adult.”

“I was thinking, like, high school,” a stunned Jones, 48, responded.

With a shrug, Jenna — who shares three children, Mila, 13, Poppy, 10, and Hal 6, with husband Henry Chase Hager — explained that she likes to heckle her competition.

“My grandfather really believed in sportsmanship, being really kind and humble and all those things, and I think my behavior really rubbed my grandmother the wrong way,” she explained of the worm incident. “So, she wrote me a letter.”

Although it was Jenna whose behavior triggered the note, she wasn’t the only target of her grandmother’s lecture.

“I get back from summer vacation and I’m like, getting the kids ready for school, again, I’m a full-blown adult,” she continued. “And she wrote me a letter, but the best part is, it was addressed to me and my dad.”

Jenna added, “She was like, ‘That behavior on the tennis court was not becoming, and George, you shouldn’t have cheered her on either.’”

The TV personality concluded her story by revealing that the note ended with a demand from her grandmother to destroy it after she was done reading and to never tell anyone about it.

“Oops,” she said, looking directly at the camera with a laugh.