Jenna Bush Hager Gets Emotional on ‘Today’ While Revealing Her Cat Went Missing: ‘Heartbreaking’

Jenna Bush Hager opened up about the upsetting day her daughter Mila’s cat, Hollywood Hager, went missing.

During the Wednesday, October 2, episode of Today, Jenna, 42, was visibly emotional as she spoke about how she discovered the cat was gone.

“Well, today is kind of a big day … This summer, there were some beautiful things that happened and one slightly heartbreaking thing in our family, which is that our beloved cat Hollywood Hager went missing,” the former first daughter told cohost Hoda Kotb. “And the guilt that I felt around that because I just felt like it was kind of my fault.”

Hoda, 60, chimed in to clarify that it was an accident. “Can we just say something, your daughter was having a birthday party and as kids come and go with the door wide open,” she told the audience.

“Yes, the door was left open,” Jenna confirmed. “I just was like, ‘Oh I invited some kids over maybe I shouldn’t have done that.’ You know you talk yourself out of it. But anyway what it’s taught me because she was Mila’s cat … we’ve been waiting and not just waiting. I mean, doing everything trying to find the kitty. Everything you could possibly think of.”

In addition to Mila, Jenna shares kids Poppy and Hal with husband Henry Hager, whom she married in 2008.

“I said to Henry after it happened, I said, ‘Do you think this is happening because right before Mila goes into middle school and that kind of funky pre-teenage time, she and I have just bonded in a way?'” Jenna said.

“For the first three nights that the cat was gone, she slept with me and we had these conversations around all of these really beautiful things about life, about love, about pain, about loss,” the mom of three explained. “And I could be there for her, and she could be there for me.”

Jenna said that she understands if viewers at home don’t see why she’s been so emotional about her cat running away.

“And I know, some of y’all are just going to be like, ‘It’s just a cat,’ but what it is watching a child’s heart hurt,” she said.

While she and her family has been incredibly upset by Hollywood’s disappearance, they have decided to adopt another cat.

“We went on Sunday and met a little baby kitty, which Mila is going to be adopting,” Jenna revealed. “So we’re going to have a new member of our household, and hopefully Holly will smell that little kitty and be like, ‘Who’s getting in there with my parents.’ And come back.”

“If you’re listening, you’re probably like, ‘Wait, wait, they lost a cat, and now they’ve found another cat?’ This has happened over the course of many months and a lot of pain,” Hoda shared. “And every day that Jenna stood here, and sometimes right before that we went on, you were crying — not just about the loss of your cat, but about Mila, your kids.”

Hoda said that over the course of many months, Jenna was crying about the cat and how Mila was feeling. She went on to say that Jenna has been talking about her missing cat a lot on the set of the talk show.

“Every single guest who came in Jenna had a full-on conversation before we went on the air about the cat,” the longtime broadcaster revealed.

And Jenna would get messages from Mila about how much she missed Hollywood.

“I would get texts, I would get a message. Mila would have her computer for school, and she would say, ‘Mommy, I miss her so much,'” Jenna said, also sharing that her eldest child was thrilled to adopt a new cat.

“She met the little kitty, and she said to me, ‘I haven’t stopped thinking about her all day,’” Jenna said.