Jenna Bush Hager returned to her seat on the July 15 broadcast of “Jenna & Sheinelle” with a task no morning-show host anticipates: correcting a factual error she had made about her own arrest record. A day earlier, the “Today” star filmed a mock Netflix documentary teaser following an online trend, but she mistakenly identified the Austin restaurant where a nearly 25-year-old legal incident occurred. Fans caught the mistake almost immediately.
Bush Hager explained she needed to set the record straight: her social media post had incorrectly named El Arroyo when the actual location was Chuy’s, another Mexican restaurant in Austin.
Bush Hager played the apology for laughs, telling viewers she is sorry to El Arroyo, which always served her—though she quickly added she was kidding.
A Mock Documentary Gone Sideways
The saga began on July 14, when Bush Hager joined a viral format in which participants pretend to sit for a somber documentary interview as dramatic music swells behind them. Her chosen subject was one of the more colorful chapters of her early adulthood. Referencing her past arrests, she said in the clip, “Preparing for my Netflix documentary about that one time at El Arroyo when I was 19. IYKYK.”
Bush Hager has two documented arrests from 2001, when she was 19 years old. The first involved a misdemeanor charge for underage alcohol possession at an Austin bar. Weeks later, she and her twin sister Barbara were arrested at a Mexican restaurant after trying to purchase alcohol with fraudulent identification. Viewers familiar with these events quickly noted that Chuy’s, not El Arroyo, was where the second incident took place.
Not Her First Live Mea Culpa
Bush Hager has had to issue multiple on-air apologies recently. During the July 24, 2025, episode of “Today With Jenna and Friends,” she repeated a profanity while telling Willie Geist about meeting his wife Christina, prompting Geist to tell her she could say it “zero times.”
Broadcasting profanity carries serious consequences. The FCC can fine stations, revoke licenses, or issue warnings for airing obscene, indecent, or profane content. Bush Hager apologized profusely and said she worried about hearing from her supervisor.
On December 11, 2024, she apologized to Hoda Kotb during a discussion about micro weddings after mentioning Kotb’s “first wedding,” not realizing Kotb had only been married once. Kotb married Burzis Kanga, a university tennis coach, in 2005, and the pair split in 2008. Kotb was later engaged to financier Joel Schiffman for just over two years before they parted ways in January 2022. Kotb left “Today” in January 2025.
A Family History of Getting Called Out
Bush Hager isn’t the first in her family to face reprimands. During the June 25, 2026, episode of “Today With Jenna & Sheinelle,” she recounted an anecdote involving her grandparents, the late President George H.W. Bush and Barbara Bush, who watched her tennis match. By her own account, she was a mother of multiple children at the time, yet she was heckling the competition, doing the worm and shouting, “Not today!”
Her father, former President George W. Bush, egged her on. Her grandmother did not. Barbara Bush later mailed a letter scolding the display as unbecoming and admonishing George W. Bush for cheering it on. The former first lady, according to her granddaughter, signed off with an instruction to destroy the letter and tell no one about it—a request Bush Hager has now recounted on national television more than once.
Whether the subject is a decades-old arrest, an errant curse word or a grandmother’s stern note, Bush Hager has built a rapport with viewers on her willingness to own the misstep and laugh at it. The El Arroyo apology, complete with a wink toward a documentary that does not exist, fit the pattern precisely—a public correction that doubled as a joke, and a reminder that the “Today” host is rarely the last to know when she has gotten something wrong.
