Originally appeared on E! Online
Jenna Bush Hager is starting the new year with not only a new co-star but also a new position.
The “TODAY With Jenna & Sheinelle” co-host revealed she is producing her first TV show for NBC — a drama called “Protection” — alongside Quantico creator and showrunner Josh Safran and Eva Longoria: “Searching for Mexico” executive producer Ben Spector.
As for what the show will be about? The former first daughter — whose parents are former President George W. Bush and former First Lady Laura Bush — explained the plot hits close to home.
“It’s about different levels of law enforcement, some based on Secret Service,” Bush Hager told her new co-host Sheinelle Jones during the Jan. 14 episode of the morning show. “So, y’all know I know about that.”
The 44-year-old added, “So, we’re hopefully going to start shooting this spring, cross your fingers, y’all. I’m so excited.”
The Daytime Emmy winner — mom to Mila, 12, Poppy, 10, and Hal, 6, with husband Henry Hager —also explained that she was heavily involved during the pitch process because she’s so thrilled by the pilot episode’s storyline.
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“I joined all the pitches because every time, to watch these sometimes jaded executives’ — not all of you, not all of you — faces drop with the twist,” she continued. “The twist is so good.”
After working as a public school teacher for four years in Washington, D.C., Bush Hager joined the TODAY show family in 2009 as a correspondent. She later took over the morning show’s fourth hour cohosting duties alongside Hoda Kotb after Kathie Lee Gifford left the show in 2019.
Since then, Bush Hager launched the TODAY show’s book club Read With Jenna and inked a first-look deal with NBC-owned Universal Studio Group, with “Protection” marking the first production from her company.
Noting her disbelief at producing a scripted TV show, Bush Hager said during the Jan. 14 TODAY episode, “Who knew I would ever do something like this, ladies and gentlemen?”
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