Jenna Bush Hager Reveals She’s Adopting a Kitten After Her Cat’s ‘Heartbreaking’ Disappearance

The ‘Today with Hoda & Jenna’ co-host shared that her daughter Mila’s cat Hollywood went missing during a birthday party at the Bush Hager home over the summer

Jenna Bush Hager/Instagram, HodaAndJenna/X

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Jenna Bush Hager and her family are coping with a devastating loss.

On Wednesday, Oct. 2, Bush Hager, 42, took a moment on Today with Hoda & Jenna to reveal that her cat Hollywood — a Christmas gift to daughter Mila in 2022 — went missing over the summer. She added that after months of searching and failing to find the pet, her family is adopting a new kitten.

Bush Hager explained on Today that “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 co-host added that she felt a lot of “guilt” about the situation “because I just felt like it was kind of my fault.”

Adding context to the story of Hollywood’s disappearance, co-host Hoda Kotb noted that the incident happened during a birthday party for one of Bush Hager’s daughters — likely Poppy, whose birthday is in August — and kids were coming and going out of the mom of three’s home “with the door wide open.”

Related: Jenna Bush Hager Says Her Cat ‘Jumped’ Out Her 3rd Story Window Over the Fourth of July Holiday: ‘She Was Fine!’

Since Hollywood the cat went missing, the family has “been waiting and not just waiting,” Bush Hager said.

“I mean, doing everything trying to find the kitty. Everything you could possibly think of,” she said — later adding that her family has even left their door unlocked and open some nights in hopes Hollywood would return.

“Is that insane?” she asked Kotb. “We’ve done everything we could.”

The silver lining to the sad situation, Bush Hager explained, is that she has been able to connect with 11-year-old Mila in a way that is “really beautiful.”

Related: Jenna Bush Hager Says Her 2 Cats Are Getting Married This Weekend: ‘We’re Having a Ceremony’

“I said to [husband Henry Chase Hager] 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?'” she recalled.

“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,” she continued. “And I could be there for her, and she could be there for me.”

Added Bush Hager: “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.”

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Now, months later, Mila is adding a new furry family member to the household.

“We went on Sunday and met a little baby kitty, which Mila is going to be adopting,” Bush Hager said. “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.”

Related: Jenna Bush Hager Gets New Kitten and Embraces Being a ‘Cat Lady’ Despite Allergy: ‘I Took an Extra Zyrtec’

Chiming in, Kotb said, “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. 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.”

Jenna Bush Hager/Instagram

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“She even told Today with Hoda & Jenna guests — every single guest who came in,” per Kotb — about Hollywood. But Mila struggled even more.

“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,'” Bush Hager recalled.

But Mila is smitten with the new kitten, Bush Hager said. “She met the little kitty, and she said to me, ‘I haven’t stopped thinking about her all day.'”

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