Jenna Bush Hager Had Dinner with Prince Charles the Night Before Queen Elizabeth's Death

Jenna Bush Hager was in Scotland for a long-planned interview with Camilla, then the Duchess of Cornwall, for the Today show about Camilla's book club. The evening before the interview was scheduled to take place, Bush Hager had dinner with her husband, Henry Chase Hager, and Prince Charles. Camilla was scheduled to be at dinner, but her British Airways flight was delayed.

Bush Hager recounted to Today that Charles told her, "My darling wife is so sad... she can’t wait to sit down with you tomorrow." She continued, "I think it was a surprise. I mean, we had a wonderful evening filled with conversation that felt joyful... and so I think this was sort of a surprise."

Charles's joyful and light-hearted mood means that any decline in the Queen's health was likely rapid the following day. Bush Hager's account of the day's events seems to confirm that:

"The next morning we were setting up the interview, we were at their house," Bush Hager recounted. "We were there at 8:30 a.m., the interview was supposed to start around 2 p.m. or 2:30 p.m., I was supposed to meet with the now-Queen Consort around 1:30 p.m. At 12:30 p.m., we heard sort of running up and down the halls and it was her team and his team... they came in and said can you please be quiet there’s a call. We were right by then-Prince Charles’s, now-King Charles III’s, office... And then all of a sudden, we heard a helicopter. They said the queen is ill and they have gone and rushed off to be with her."

Queen Elizabeth passed away on September 8.

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