Former President George H.W. Bush, in an interview aired Tuesday, denied that he knows anything about Justin Bieber — whom he called "The Bieber" — but acknowledged that he and the 18-year-old pop singer share a love of colorful socks.
"I like a colorful sock. I'm a sock man," Bush acknowledged on NBC. "Biebs? Is he a sock man? I don't know much about The Bieber. I never see him, I don't know what he does."
Recent photographs of Bush wearing stand-out socks with his suits have earned him style comparisons to Bieber, according to his granddaughter Jenna Bush Hager, who as an NBC News contributor interviewed Bush for a "Today" segment that aired on Bush's 88th birthday.
Bush last month visited the White House for what he called a "proud" moment to see the official portrait of his son, 43rd President George W. Bush, unveiled. Photographs showed the elder Bush wearing a pair of colorful socks. He also wore an eye-catching pair to a recent joint interview where he endorsed Mitt Romney as the GOP nominee.
Bieber is also often photographed wearing brightly colored socks, or socks with notable designs.
Bush demonstrated the yellow pair he wore to the interview at the family home in Maine. "This is a modest pair here today — subdued, you might say."
He denied that he'd ever heard Bieber's hit song "Baby," despite his granddaughter's insistence that he likes it.
"I don't think I'd like it," Bush said.
Asked to look back over his life on his birthday, Bush said it was "not too shabby" to have been president.
"Aging's all right; better than the alternative," Bush said.
But he refused to speculate about his own legacy as 41st president of the United States.
"I've kind of banned the use of the L-word, 'legacy' word," he said. "I think history will ... point out some of the things I did wrong, and perhaps some of the things we did right."
According to Hager, Bush wants to do something he's never done for his 90th birthday, in two years: Go sky-diving.
