Jenna Bush Hager Shares How She and Sheinelle Jones Bonded When They Met (Exclusive)

Family ties run deep for Jenna Bush Hager and Sheinelle Jones.

Both Today broadcasters were fortunate enough to have relationships with their grandparents well into adulthood, and Bush Hager tells PEOPLE she and Jones bonded over that fact very quickly when they first met more than a decade ago at NBC.

“[Sheinelle] just lost her grandmother, but both of us got to know our grandparents as adults, which is something that’s so unbelievably lucky and not many people get to do. My kids have already lost a grandfather,” Bush Hager, 44, says. “So to get to know your grandparents into your 30s and 40s and have them shape your life in such profound ways — which is something the two of us really share — is remarkable.”

Bush Hager’s grandparents included the late former president George H.W. Bush and Barbara Bush on her father’s side, and the late Harold Welch and Jenna Welch on her mother’s.

Jones’ grandfather, Dr. Val Brown Sr., died in 2022, while her “Grandmama” Josephine Brown died on Dec. 31, 2025, just seven months after the death of her husband, Uche Ojeh.

In her recent PEOPLE cover interview, Jones called her grandparents “trailblazers.”

“[Jenna and I] both have feisty grandmothers. Mine was the first woman of color on the school board in my hometown. Her grandmother is as equally beyond feisty, right?” Jones said of Brown and of Barbara.

And the same impressive nature was true of both women’s grandfathers, says Jones.

“I was very, very close to my grandfather. He was one of the first African American doctors in my hometown, and I had a really close relationship with him and he passed several years ago. Jenna was one of my first messages and her words were the only words that really gave me comfort because she was so close to her grandfather,” Jones reveals.

“One was president and one was an African American trailblazer, but we could meet each other with our love for our grandparents,” she adds.

Bush Hager echoed her pal’s sentiment, noting that their common ground lent itself to a natural friendship from the start.

“Sheinelle also grew up partly in Kansas. I grew up in Texas. Her shared frame of reference is so similar, our kids are similar ages. She was in this beautiful marriage. So, we have all of these things that are in common and this shared perspective. And so it’s really fun to sit next to somebody where you can learn from them and grow with them when we’re in similar stages of life,” she says.

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“We joke about how both of our moms made us buy beige bras at Dillard’s. Like, ‘You too?'” says Jones with a laugh. “So it’s one of those things where I think we have enough differences, but also enough things in common, that it just works. And we look at each other, and we’re safe. If I fall, she’s going to pick me up and vice versa.”