During an episode of Today’s Jenna and Friends, Jenna Bush Hager sat down with special guest Scarlett Johansson.
As the two chatted, they began to discuss marriage and the idea of changing your last name to match your spouse.
Johansson, who married her husband Colin Jost in 2020, stands by not having changed her name and said that even her mother-in-law strongly agreed with the decision.
Bush Hager then explained her personal reasons for wanting to take on the last name of her husband, Henry Chase Hager.
People’s preconceived notions about her family after the presidencies of her father, George W. Bush and her grandfather, George H.W. Bush led her to want to distance herself from the name.
When marrying her husband, Bush Hager was eager to finally escape the name and carve out her own reputation as Jenna Hager.
“I was a teacher in inner city D.C., […] and I went by Miss Jenna because I didn’t really want them to know, although, of course, they knew. And so I was, like, ready to go by Hager,” Bush Hager said in a clip from the show.
Then, when she began anchoring the TODAY show, the network asked her to add Bush back into her name so viewers could more easily recognize her, since she had published a book under the name Jenna Bush.
“They were like ‘people may not know who you are,’ which is so stupid because I’ve been here for 15 years, you know? Anyway, I did both, and I’m fine with it,” she said.
For more celebrities who changed their names after marriage, read on.
