Jenna Bush Hager Reveals The Lengths She Went To In Order To Convince Oprah To Come On ‘Today’

Hoda Kotb has met many famous celebrities throughout her years as a journalist but never did she meet one of her biggest idols, Oprah Winfrey. That is, until this past Friday. Her Today Show co-host Jenna Bush Hager just so happened to know Winfrey and was determined to surprise Kotb with her. While getting an interview with Oprah is pretty difficult these days, Hager managed to do so with flowers, wine, and a nice card, according to Page Six.

Winfrey hadn’t been on the Today Show in years and is, of course, a busy woman who is currently on tour. Thus, Hager knew it would be a challenge to make it happen. Nevertheless, when two co-hosts talked about their visions for the coming year, they decided to make interviewing Winfrey one of their visions for 2020 in hopes of manifesting it.

Hager recalled how she worked her magic to make this happen for Kotb.

“I interviewed her [for Oprah’s 2020 Vision Tour last month], and I told her, ‘You know, my New Year’s resolution was to see [you] again … but Hoda has never met you.’ And she said, ‘Well, we’re going to make that happen too.’ I wrote her a letter [thanking] her for starting her tour with us and said, ‘There’s always a place if you ever want to come,’ and then we had a phone call, and I sent wine to her whole team for helping with this interview. I sent flowers. The wine is key to everything.”

Sure enough, Winfrey agreed and Hager was able to surprise Kotb with the happy news this past Monday, giving her several days to mentally prepare. Winfrey’s visit seemed to be all that the television hosts were imagining, both of them brought to tears over the happy encounter. Winfrey even came with a gift basket filled with produce from her very own garden, including her famous avocados.

Winfrey’s visit on Friday was only the second time Hager and Kotb did their show in front of a live studio audience. This is a new change to the show that was brought about last week. As The Inquisitr previously reported, the fourth hour will be done in the traditional format on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays and will be performed in front of a studio audience on Thursdays and Fridays. Their goal for doing this is to allow for greater viewer engagement and to get a better understanding of what kind of content their viewers like.