It’s only natural for Jenna Bush Hager and her twin sister, Barbara Pierce Bush, to call each other “sissy.”
So natural, in fact, that they did it 17 times in one edition of TODAY with Jenna & Friends.
The TODAY producers brought it to their attention with a clip of all the times the two called each other “sissy” when Barbara served as Jenna’s guest co-host on March 24.
“We learned something about ourselves yesterday, and it’s that we have a problem,” Barbara said on Jenna & Friends on March 25.
“We have a serious problem that we’d like to publicly admit and share with all of you,” Jenna said.
“They all know,” Barbara replied. “They noticed it. Just we didn’t notice it until yesterday.”
Jenna hinted that TODAY fans also noticed the overuse.
“Apparently, and thank you all for all of you lovely people that commented, we say ‘sissy’ โ” Jenna said.
“A lot,” Barbara said.
“Not just a lot,” Jenna said, “like maybe too much. In fact, our producers wanted to show us how much.”
The daughters of former President George W. Bush and first lady Laura Bush then watched an edit of all the times they used that affectionate term for one another on the show.
“Turns out we said ‘sissy’ 17 times just in the chat,” Barbara said.
“It’s actually amazing that our mouths can do that โ that that word could come out 17 times,” Jenna said.
The “sissies” are working on it.
“Now I call her Barbara,” Jenna said. “We’re formal. We’ve taken ‘sissy,’ locked it up, put it in my pocket.”
Barbara said that Kathy Behrens, her boss at the NBA, where Barbara works in the social responsibility department, said she definitely noticed all the uses of “sissy” between the twins.
“She said no one could say ‘sissy’ that much, and I said, ‘Watch us,'” Barbara joked.
Jenna then tried to explain why the moniker is so common between them.
“You guys, we’ve only known the world together,” she said.
“It started in the womb,” Barbara said.
“When we were in the womb I was like, ‘Yo, sissy, pass me some of mom’s food,'” Jenna said.
They promised to keep the mentions to a minimum on March 25 during Barbara’s second day as Jenna’s guest co-host.
“We’re working on it, and we thank you for your patience,” Barbara said.
“We do, and if we say it during the show, we apologize,” Jenna said. “We’re just being ourselves.”
They almost made it through the whole segment without saying it, but had to sneak one in at the end.
“Love us for us,” Barbara said.
“Love us for us,” Jenna replied. “Sissies first.”
