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Today guest host Jay Ellis offered Jenna Bush Hager some valuable, if controversial, dating advice on the show this morning.
The co-hosts were taking viewers’ questions and offering advice when one viewer asked if he was “wrong to feel annoyed” that his date, Stephanie, has still not offered to pay after having gone on four dates. “She’s never even done the move where she *pretends* to reach for her wallet,” the viewer wrote.
“Stephanie, Stephanie, Stephanie,” Ellis chastised. “You’ve got to at least fake a guy out.”
Though Bush Hager appeared shocked and disagreed, even Today producer Gavin Shulman agreed with Ellis from behind the camera with a loud, “Yeah!”
Ellis then proceeded to press Bush Hager about whether she’s ever paid — or, at least, pretended to try and pay — for a date with her husband.
“You’ve got to fake a guy out,” he told Bush Hager, who still appeared shocked. “You’ve never faked your husband out? What are you talking about?”
Bush Hager explained, “No! Well, yes, but we’ve also been married for 17 years so it’s all the same. You pay the Amazon, I pay the whatever.” But when Ellis asked if she remembered paying for dinner dates 18 years ago before they got married, she admitted, “I don’t remember, if I’m totally honest.”
“That means no!” Ellis fired back. “Jenna, no.”
Bush Hager defended herself, adding that things worked differently back then. “I read the rules and back in the ’90s men paid for things,” she told Ellis.
Ellis took a moment to clarify his point, and it was almost enough to change Bush Hager’s mind.
“I’m just gonna speak for myself honestly because I know I’m about to get into a lot of trouble… But I enjoy taking my wife to dinner, I really did enjoy that or or to a movie, or to a play whatever it may be,” he said. “But it’s kind of sexy when a woman is like, ‘No don’t worry about it, I got this one.’”
Bush Hager now seemed impressed — so impressed, she was going to give it a shot this weekend.
“Okay, well I know what I’m doing Friday night. I’m paying for dinner and seeing what happens,” she joked.
Today with Jenna & Friends airs on weekdays at 10/9c on NBC.