Willie Geist Shares How He Felt Watching Daughter Graduate High School

Willie Geist’s daughter is a high school graduate, and the proud dad is feeling all the emotions.

The Sunday Today host, 49, spoke with Jenna Bush Hager on a Tuesday, June 10, episode of Today with Jenna & Friends and shared that his daughter Lucie, 17, recently graduated from high school.

Bush Hager recalled speaking with Geist several years ago when he noted he still had time with his daughter, and now he shared that it feels like the time moved so quickly.

“I probably was feeling that way a little bit back then, but also I thought, ‘That’s a way off.’ I don’t really have to worry about it,” Geist said. “And then all of a sudden, it’s on you.”

“Even the graduation week, there are parties and things at school,” he continued. “You’re kinda busy. And then all of a sudden, you’re sitting there and you’re looking up at that stage and you go, ‘Oh. That’s her! That’s Lucie, that’s my daughter walking across, shaking the hand of the principal and getting the diploma.”

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It wasn’t until Lucie was on stage and speaking that Geist said the magnitude of the moment really hit him and his wife Christina.

“I mean, you wake up every day for 18 years thinking about this person and then another person when you have more kids,” he said. “And it’s what occupies, in the best way, your life. Everything about your life. And then all of a sudden, she’s ready to go.”

“And you hope you instilled in her all the values and the habits and the things she’ll need to go out in the world,” Geist explained. “It’s a beautiful moment, it’s exciting but also as any parent who has been through this, or maybe you’re going through it right now, knows the excitement at times becomes terror. Like I’ll be driving the car and my stomach will drop and I’ll go, ‘Oh my gosh!’” 

Alongside daughter Lucie, Geist is also dad to son George, 15.

During a February 2024 episode of Today, Geist opened up about another monumental moment with his daughter that made him a little emotional.

The proud dad shared that his daughter Lucie recently got her driver’s license and noted that as he watched her driving for the first time, he got teary-eyed.

“She’s a good kid with a driver’s license now,” the proud dad said. “She just got her driver’s license. That’s a big moment as many of you parents out there know.”

Calling his daughter a “good” and “responsible” driver, Geist noted that he wasn’t nervous for Lucie to be on the road “because I know her, and I know how careful she is and conscientious.”

But for Geist, the hardest part of the special moment was watching his daughter drive away for the first time.

“She pulled away. She’s driving in front of me and Christina and it was a little emo,” he said. “The first thought I had was, I taught her how to ride a bike in Riverside Park in New York, you stand behind her, you hold the seat.”

“And you watch her kind of go away on her own,” Geist recalled. “And she turns back and goes, ‘Oh, Dad’s not holding the seat anymore, I did it.’ And I had the same feeling.”