…and Dad’s doing a “great job.”
Curious to know how exactly Henry Hager proposed to First Daughter Jenna Bush? The latest People magazine, which hits newsstands this Friday, has the details.
“It was 4 a.m. and Jenna Bush just wanted to sleep. She and her boyfriend, Henry Hager, were camping out in Maine’s Acadia National Park, Aug. 15, and Hager had woken her up in the dark. His plan? To hike to the top of Cadillac Mountain, the highest peak on the East Coast. Jenna got up groggily, and the nature-lovers set off, wearing head lamps to light the way. As they neared the summit, Hager, 29, suggested stopping for an energy bar. Then as the sun began to rise, he proposed. ‘I was in shock,’ says Jenna, her custom-made platinum-set round diamond-and-sapphire ring now sparkling on her left hand. ‘I acted the complete opposite of how I thought I would: I was quiet. He said, ‘Are you excited?’ I was like, ‘I don’t know!'”
People’s interview with Jenna offers an intimate look inside the life of the “resolutely private 25-year-old,” who hits the book circuit this week to promote “Ana’s Story,” which details Jenna’s experience with a 17-year-old single mother living with HIV.
The first daughter is looking forward to the end of her father’s administration. “It will be fun to have some of him back,” she says, but she still thinks he’s been a good president: “I think he has done a really great job.” But don’t expect her to jump into her dad’s profession. “I’m not interested in traditional politics. … Nope, no way.”
Jenna adds that her partying days are over. “I’ve grown in the past five years,” she says. “I’ve become really disciplined.”
The article reveals that some of her childhood behavior had First Lady Laura Bush worried. “She played alone with dolls so often, ‘making up dramatic stories — Barbie would cheat on somebody’ —that Mrs. Bush ‘was worried,’ Jenna says. ‘Then she read that Toni Morrison did the same thing and thought, ‘She may be a writer’.”
Other tidbits: Jenna grew up slightly jealous of her sister, Barbara Bush. “‘Barbara was brilliant; I had a harder time,’ she says.
The two have some interesting nicknames for each other. “Their nicknames for each other have ranged from Hermie (short for the Spanish ‘hermana,’ meaning ‘sister’) to their current choice: Beast. (‘I don’t know why,’ says Jenna.”
