Jenna Bush Hager Slams Comedian Shane Gillis for 'Derogatory' 'SNL' Monologue: 'Stop Using Words That Perpetuate Disgustingness'

Jenna Bush Hager slammed Shane Gillis for his recent controversial Saturday Night Live monologue.

The 44-year-old joined in on the internet's discourse with her co-host, Sheinelle Jones, on the October 12 episode of TODAY With Jenna and Sheinelle.

"I hadn't been to the gym in so long, I didn't know women just dress like w----- now?" the comedian said during the show on October 10, which the women reacted to a clip of. "There's no other way to describe it. Have you seen it? I've seen it. The shorts?"

The joke sparked outrage on the internet, a sentiment both Bush Hager and Jones echoed.

"Who is he to comment on women's bodies?" Bush Hager asked of Gillis. "This perpetuates what is happening in our culture where people are commenting on women's looks ad nauseam."

Bush Hager, who has two daughters, noted she would never want her tween girls, or even her younger son, to see someone making comments like Gillis' and think it was okay.

"If we want to be good role models for our children, stop talking about the way women look. Period," she declared.

The anchor called the type of commentary Gillis was leaning into "disgusting," noting that if her husband, Henry Hager, ever said something like that, she would be appalled.

"I wouldn't want my son to hear that," Bush Hager pointed out. "If my husband talked like that about somebody, first of all, he would never. But if he did, I would be disgusted by it."

Bush Hager and Jones, both mothers of three children, frequently have conversations on their morning show about how to talk to children about current events and online discourse.

"I think when we're having conversations on here about the horrible things happening in the world and how to talk to our kids about it," she began. "Maybe the first place to start is for some of these people to start acting like role models."

"Stop using words that perpetuate disgustingness," Bush Hager added.

Jones agreed that one of the major issues she had with Gillis' observations on women's gym outfits was his choice of words.

"My challenge is the word 'w----,'" Jones said of the monologue. "... I think when you say the word 'w----' it feels almost derogatory."

"Not almost. It's derogatory," Bush Hager interjected. "I wouldn't want my kids to listen to that."

She went on to slam "casual cruelty about the way people look," which she believed to be on full display during Gillis' tirade.

"Imagine you heard your daughter talking the way some of these people online talk about women," she concluded. "It's not okay."