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Jenna Bush Hager greets the packed crowd at the Virgin Hotels New York. Behind her, the New York skyline — 38 floors up — glimmers in the golden hour light. The crowd is gathered for the Read With Jenna Girls Night Out, a one-night event part of TODAY's six-day Fan Fest — and it's full of TODAY devotees and Read With Jenna book lovers. There’s Janelle, a nurse who says Jenna got her through disability leave. Next to her is her husband, who remembers hearing her laugh for the first time during her recovery while watching TODAY with Jenna & Friends. There’s Ellen, whose daughters say she watches TODAY daily (and DVRs it when she can’t). And Jill, who invited her mom Amie to the event. Jenna is recording two episodes of her podcast, "Open Book with Jenna," in front of a live audience — first, a conversation with Allison Williams about the adaptation of Colleen Hoover's "Regretting You." Then, a panel with authors Carley Fortune, Kennedy Ryan and Aimee O'Neill, who wrote the October 2025 Read With Jenna pick. “The beautiful thing about books is that they bring us together and they provide a beautiful platform for conversations,” Jenna says — and that certainly happens. Jenna's conversation with Allison Williams gets deep quick, touching on the actor's time on "Girls," her experience as a toddler mom and the pressure of adapting a Colleen Hoover novel. Williams also opens up about her relationship to the term "nepo baby," which rose to popularity in 2022 as a way to describe the famous child of famous parents. While some shirk the label, she embraces it. "It's 100% a phenomenon and one of the first examples is my career," Williams says. Williams' dad is newscaster Brian Williams and her mom, Jane Stoddard, is a news producer. After graduating from college, Williams starred in a music video remaking the "Mad Men" theme song. She says coverage of the video — and headlines about her being Brian Williams' daughter — led to her being cast as Marnie in "Girls," which launched her acting career. "I thought (the video) was good, because I'm my dad's daughter, it got picked up places. And because of that, Judd Apatow saw it on the Huffington Post, and he was in the process of casting the role of Marnie. They asked me to come and audition," she remembers. The experience led Williams to conclude that it's "crazy" when "people deny that having connections is helpful." "There's a net that not everyone has. If you're going into a creative pursuit, knowing that there's only so far you can fall, is a fundamentally different pursuit than it is if you are leaving your hometown with nothing except your aspirations," she continues to Jenna. She says she is trying to say the "quiet part out loud" about the industry's "unfairness." "When you're watching from the wings and trying to get into business, and you need to get someone to open the door for you, it is maddening to watch people just waltz through it and not struggle the way you are — we are so lucky," she says. Jenna says she relates, giving the example of when the book she wrote was covered by TODAY, long before she started working there. "That doesn't happen for everyone. That was because my dad was president of the United States," she says. They also speak about the flip-side of that privilege: Jenna shares that she worked "so hard" in her career because she felt like she had something to prove. Williams thinks people get "defensive" about this topic because they think people are "coming for their hard work." "No one can take my hard work — that's mine. My skill is up to everyone else to decide. Unfortunately, as much as I love control, I'm never going to be able to make everyone like me," she says. "But I will try." Later on in the night, Jenna has a spirited discussion about the writing life with authors Carley Fortune, Kennedy Ryan and Heather Aimee O'Neill. Fortune shares the tidbit that she has seen the first episode of her upcoming "Every Summer After" adaptation, and it has made her cry. When an audience member asks her if the Florek brothers from her books will make another appearance, she offers a coy, "Maybe." Episodes of both podcasts will be available in the coming weeks — so that even if you couldn't attend, you can hear the highlights.
