Jenna Bush Hager Thought Her Husband Would Fall in Love with Guest Co-Host Scarlett Johansson: ‘Turns Out It Was Me’ (Exclusive)

Love is in the air for the Hagers and Scarlett Johansson — just not in the way Jenna Bush Hager had anticipated. 

The Today show co-anchor, 43, told PEOPLE at a Read with Jenna event in New York City earlier this month that she predicted her husband Henry Chase Hager would “fall in love” with the Black Widow actress, 40, when Johansson guest co-hosted Jenna & Friends for a week in January.

“I thought it was my husband that was going to fall in love with her, but it turns out it was me,” Jenna jokingly confessed, referring to her 46-year-old partner, whom she married in 2008 at her family’s lakeside ranch in Texas.

During one episode of Jenna & Friends, the fourth hour of the NBC morning staple, Jenna and Johansson played a “Best Friends” game, during which they learned they both prefer piercings over tattoos. The mutual revelation inspired them to get piercings together later that week.

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“We were like, ‘Let’s just get our ears pierced together,’ ” Johansson told the crowd at the time. “So we have committed to that. Today we’re doing it.” 

“I have a lot of piercings,” she continued. “When I was a kid, I just was into piercings, and then I had my eyebrow pierced, my septum, my everything. It was just a thing. And so I think it’s been a minute since I got a piercing, so I’m excited to do it with you.”

At the Read with Jenna event on Feb. 10, Jenna was in conversation with Jessica Soffer about the author’s novel This Is a Love Story, which chronicles a decades-long marriage between a couple who met in Central Park.

“I like reading a book like This Is a Love Story because it lets me sort of live among the romance of others when I’ve been married to somebody for 16 years,” Jenna told PEOPLE of living vicariously through fictional characters.

Today airs weekdays, beginning at 7 a.m. ET, on NBC.