Jenna Bush Hager greets a packed crowd at Virgin Hotels in New York City. Behind her, the New York City skyline—38 stories high—glimmers in the light of the golden hour.
A crowd gathers for the Girls' Read with Jenna Party, a one-day event that is part of Six-day Fan Fest TODAY – and there are plenty of TODAY fans and Read with Jenna book lovers here.
There's Janelle, a nurse, who says Jenna helped her get out of disability leave. At her side is her husband, who remembers the first time he heard her laugh during her recovery while watching TODAY with Jenna and Friends. There's Ellen, whose daughters say she watches TODAY every day (and DVRs when she can't). And Jill, who invited her mother Amy to the event.
Jenna is recording two episodes of her podcast.”Open book with Jennain front of a live audience—first, a conversation with Allison Williams about adapting Colleen Hoover's book Sorry About You. Then a panel featuring authors Carly Fortune, Kennedy Ryan and Aimee O'Neill, who wrote the October 2025 Read with Jenna selection.
“Books are great because they bring us together and provide a great platform for conversation,” Jenna says, “and that’s certainly happening.”
Jenna's conversation with Allison Williams gets fast-paced, touching on the actor's time on Girls, her experiences as a baby mama and the challenges of adapting Colleen Hoover's novel.
Williams also talks about her attitude to the term “baby”“, which became popular in 2022 as a way to describe a famous child of famous parents. While some shun the label, she embraces it.
“It's 100% a phenomenon, and one of the first examples is my career,” Williams says.
Williams' father is news anchor Brian Williams, and her mother Jane Stoddard is a news producer. After graduating from college, Williams starred in a music video re-imagining the Mad Men theme song. She says coverage of the video—and headlines about her being Brian Williams' daughter—led to her landing the role of Marnie in Girls, which launched her acting career.
“I thought (the video) was good because I’m my father’s daughter, it got recognition. And because of this, Judd Apatow saw him on the Huffington Post, and he was just casting for the role of Marnie. They asked me to come and audition,” she recalls.
This experience led Williams to conclude that it was “crazy” that “people deny that having connections is beneficial.”
“There is a network that not everyone has. If you go into a creative pursuit knowing that you can only fall so far, it's a fundamentally different experience than if you leave your hometown with nothing but your aspirations,” she continues to Jenna.
She says she's trying to say out loud the “quiet part” about the “injustices” of the industry.
“When you're watching from behind the scenes and you're trying to get into business and you need someone to open the door for you, it's crazy to watch people just float through and not struggle like you do—we're so lucky,” she says.
Jenna tells her story by giving an example of how a book she wrote was featured in TODAY magazine, long before she started working there.
“This doesn't happen to everyone. That's because my father was the President of the United States,” she says.
They also talk about the downside of this privilege: Jenna reveals that she worked “so hard” in her career because she felt like she had something to prove.
Williams believes people are “defensive” about the topic because they think people are “coming for their hard work.”
“No one can take on my hard work—it’s mine. My skills should decide everything else. Unfortunately, as much as I love control, I can never please everyone,” she says. “But I'll try.”
Later that night, Jenna has a lively discussion about the writing life with authors Carly Fortune, Kennedy Ryan and Heather Aimee O'Neill.
Fortune shares the tidbit that she has saw the first episode of her upcoming “Film adaptation of “Every Summer After”and he has made her cry. When an audience member asks her if the Florek brothers from her books will appear again, she modestly replies, “Maybe.”
Episodes of both podcasts will be available in the coming weeks – so even if you weren't able to attend, you can hear the highlights.
