Jenna Bush Hager Fawned Over How Good Oprah Winfrey Smelled During Their First Meeting: 'You Can't Believe You're Hugging'

Jenna Bush Hager is still fan-girling over Oprah Winfrey following their first meeting five years ago.

During the Wednesday, October 29, episode of TODAY With Jenna & Friends, the host, 43, reflected on feeling starstruck over one of her biggest inspirations.

Growing up, Bush Hager did not want to be a talk show host, but she "loved" Winfrey and considered her "everybody's idol."

"I still love her. What she did for literacy, everything," the media personality gushed to guest co-host Leanne Morgan. "When I got to meet her, it was on January 5, 2020, and I told my husband, 'This is going to be the best year we've ever had.' And then the pandemic broke out. I was like, 'Oh, my gosh.' You get to meet your heroes, and we just held hands...you know what it's like to hold hands with Oprah."

Morgan and Bush Hager agreed the 71-year-old's "love language is physical touch, because she just holds onto you."

"You can't believe you're hugging Oprah!" the Today host exclaimed. "And she does smell great."

The You're Cordially Invited actress previously visited Winfrey's house in Montecito, Calif.

"What does it smell like?" Bush Hager pressed her.

"Well, I was in the tea room and looked over at the rose garden. She's like, 'Look out that way, Leanne,' and it was that rose garden," the comedian recounted. "Her toilet paper...I've never seen toilet paper like that. Everything was just so beautiful...and she was so loving."

Winfrey even flew to Dallas, Tex., with Gayle King to see her perform at the American Airlines Center.

"Through my whole act, I thought, 'Does Oprah think I'm a fool? Does Oprah think I'm funny? What am I doing?'" Morgan remembered. "I look out there, and I can see her. She wanted to sit with the audience. She said, 'Don't fuss over me. I don't need security.' She goes, 'Just let me get out there.' And I can see her."

"Ain't she the best? I want to go to her tea house. That's my New Year's resolution," Bush Hager fawned over the star, noting that if Winfrey invited her to be on her podcast, she would "be there tomorrow."

Winfrey made headlines recently for showing off her slimmed-down figure in a series of public appearances, including a vacation in Umbria, Italy, in August. The Color Purple alum previously revealed she used a GLP-1 to aid in her weight loss.

"I now use it as I feel I need it, as a tool to manage not yo-yoing," she told an outlet in 2023. "I realized I’d been blaming myself all these years for being overweight, and I have a predisposition that no amount of willpower is going to control. Obesity is a disease. It’s not about willpower — it's about the brain."