Star Jones

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Star Jones
Jones in April 2011
Born	Starlet Marie Jones (1962-03-24) March 24, 1962 (age 51) Badin, North Carolina, U.S.
Alma mater	American University University of Houston
Occupation	Lawyer, journalist, talk show host, writer
Years active	1991 – present
Notable credit(s)	The View (1997–2006) The Star Jones Show (2007–2008)
Spouse(s)	Al Reynolds (m. 2004–2008)

Star Jones (previously Star Jones Reynolds; born March 24, 1962) is an American lawyer, journalist, writer, and television personality. She is known for her former role as a co-host of the ABC weekday morning talk show The View from 1997 to 2006. She was one of sixteen contestants of the fourth installment of Celebrity Apprentice, coming in fifth place.^[1]

[edit] Early life

Born Starlet Marie Jones in Badin, North Carolina, Star moved as a child to Trenton, New Jersey. She graduated from Notre Dame High School in Lawrenceville, New Jersey.^[2] She earned a B.A. degree in The Administration of Justice at American University and a juris doctor degree from the University of Houston Law Center. While a student at American, she was initiated into the Lambda Zeta chapter of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Television career

Jones was recruited by Court TV in 1991 as a commentator for the William Kennedy Smith rape trial and spent several years as a legal correspondent for NBC's Today and NBC Nightly News. She left NBC in 1994 to preside in her own court show, Jones & Jury. Although only a short-lived stint, it made her the first Black person to serve as a television judge of a courtroom series, the second being Judge Joe Brown. Jones and Jury was the 2nd ever court show that used the arbitration-based reality format, succeeding The People's Court. Although Jones and Jury was canceled after only one year, Jones quickly rebounded: shortly thereafter, she was signed up as chief legal analyst on Inside Edition, where she was assigned to lead the coverage of the O.J. Simpson murder case. She was the only reporter to interview Simpson during his civil trial, which she covered for American Journal.

[edit] The View

In 1997, Jones joined The View as a co-host, a role that increased her public exposure significantly.

Jones's tenure on The View was marked by controversy at times, particularly her rapid weight loss from 2003 and a publicized wedding to Al Reynolds in 2004.

On June 27, 2006, Jones officially reported on a live segment of The View that she would be leaving the show after nine seasons as co-host. She told People Magazine that the decision to leave was not her own. "What you don't know is that my contract was not renewed for the 10th season... I feel like I was fired." She found out her contract would not be renewed just days before Rosie O'Donnell's addition to the show was announced.^[3] Her public announcement on a live segment of the show garnered much attention from TV critics.

The following day, Barbara Walters stated on The View that she had been "blindsided" by Jones's public announcement and that effective immediately Jones no longer would appear on The View. When the series went into summer reruns, only programs in which she had been absent from the panel were rebroadcast. Jones was removed from the opening credits, leaving only Walters, Joy Behar, and Elisabeth Hasselbeck. In addition to being removed from the credits, Jones was immediately removed from the ABC.com website.

Shortly after, Jones joined Larry King on his talk show to defend her position and respond to questions about why ABC had refused to renew her contract. The network claimed that not only did Jones's excessive reports about her wedding plans alienate viewers, but also her acceptance of clothing and merchandise for the event, in exchange for mentions on The View, was in violation of network policy. When questioned about these issues by King, Jones adamantly stated that every mention of her wedding and those connected to it on The View was specifically approved and negotiated by the network itself, clearly not in violation of any policy. She also reminded viewers that the ratings during that time were the highest ratings The View had had in the nine years she was a co-host.

In May 2008, in response to the publication of Barbara Walters's autobiography, Audition, Jones released a statement to US Magazine: "It is a sad day when an icon like Barbara Walters, in the sunset of her life, is reduced to publicly branding herself as an adulterer, humiliating an innocent family with accounts of her illicit affair and speaking negatively against me all for the sake of selling a book. It speaks to her true character." Walters did not respond to Jones's statement.^[4]

On Wednesday, February 22, 2012, Jones returned to The View as a guest for the first time in six years and was greeted warmly by Elisabeth Hasselbeck, Joy Behar, and Barbara Walters (her former co-hosts) as well as Whoopi Goldberg and Sherri Shepherd (both added to the panel since her departure in 2006).

[edit] Star Jones on truTV

Media reports on March 7, 2007, stated that Star Jones would return to truTV (formerly Court TV) as its new executive editor of daytime programming and would host a live weekday talk show based on the law and pop culture. It premiered on August 20.

On January 31, 2008, it was announced that Jones and truTV mutually decided to end their relationship as the network made changes in their programming selection. The final episode of Star Jones's program aired on February 1, 2008. According to The Washington Post, "[Jones's] show averaged 186,000 viewers and, by its final telecast, was down in the neighborhood of 85,000."^[5] She will remain a legal expert contributor to "In Session" trial coverage. She was making $8 million a year from Court TV.^[6] In January 2011, the talk show was featured among "10 Notable Talk Show Failures" in a CNBC.com slide show article.^[7]

[edit] Other appearances

From September 2004 to September 2005, Jones was a red-carpet host for the E! television network, conducting interviews at awards shows. Jones and E! declined to renew her contract after one year.^[8]

In July 2006, Jones hosted a week of the HGTV program House Hunters in New York City. Her appearance on the program "scored the largest household ratings in the cable channel's history." ^[9]

For three days in December 2006, Jones sat in for Michael Eric Dyson to guest-host his radio show in his absence. Also that month, she produced for the Cathy Hughes-owned TV-One cable station The Star Jones-Reynolds Report, which reported on events that tremendously affected the African American community the previous year.

On April 2, 2007, she sat in as host of Larry King Live, interviewing Beyoncé Knowles while King was on vacation.

She appeared in "Screwed," the eighth season finale of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. While her character was also named Star Jones, she was not playing herself but rather a prosecutor from Brooklyn—a position she held earlier in her career.

She hosted Oxygen Network's hit reality television show The Bad Girls Club Season 2 reunion episode, which aired on May 20, 2008.

In 2009 she appeared on several episodes of The Insider as a celebrity panelist.

On April 22, 2009, Jones appeared on the syndicated talk show Dr. Phil. As a former Brooklyn, NY Homicide Prosecutor, Jones sat on a legal panel to discuss the alleged murder of Sandra Cantu by Melissa Huckaby.

On July 17, 2009, Jones appeared on a celebrity version of Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?, during which she won $25,000 to benefit The East Harlem School at Exodus House, a New York City middle school for underserved populations.

Star Jones also appeared on the fourth season of The Celebrity Apprentice. She placed fifth on the show, eliminated after her brand messaging efforts in a TV commercial for OnStar were not well received by the OnStar executives. She also feuded with Nene Leakes.

In February 2012, Jones appeared on The View for the first time since walking off the show more than five years earlier.

In August 2012 Jones appeared as Judge Grace Lyford in Drop Dead Diva in the episode "Pick's & Pakes.

She is a good friend of Wendy Williams and has often appeared on The Wendy Williams Show.

[edit] Books

Jones has written three books. The first, You Have to Stand for Something, or You'll Fall for Anything, is a collection of autobiographical essays published in 1998. In January 2006, Jones published her second book, Shine: A Physical, Emotional, and Spiritual Journey to Finding Love, detailing changes she made to reshape her life, including her marriage and dramatic weight loss. Her most recent book, Satan's Sisters, a work of fiction, was released on March 22, 2011.

[edit] Public image

Among the issues that emerged while Jones was a host on The View, one was her weight loss, which seemed to occur fairly suddenly after her years of weight struggles. Viewers and commentators suspected that she had had gastric bypass surgery. In 2006, when Jones was a guest on Bob and the Showgram on WDCG 105.1 FM in Raleigh, North Carolina, she was asked whether she had had such surgery, and she denied it. However, in a September 2007 interview in Glamour magazine, she revealed that she had indeed undergone gastric bypass surgery in August 2003, resulting in a loss of 160 pounds (73 kg) over three years.^[10] A number of commentators criticized Jones for refusing to be honest and for claiming for some time that she had lost weight via a portion control diet and exercise. Before admitting the surgery, she even went so far as to adamantly deny ever lying to People Magazine and stated that she "wasn't ashamed." ^[11]

Jones was named to PETA's "worst dressed" list four years in a row.^[12] An anti-fur ad from PETA featured drag queen Flotilla DeBarge dressed as Jones in a spoof. Jones threatened to sue PETA and DeBarge as a result of the ad.^[13]

Star Jones was named National Spokesperson for NAPW (National Association of Professional Women) in January 2012.^[14] Jones has since participated in chapter meetings in Florida, California and New York, where she recorded interviews that were aired nationally. Jones hosted NAPW's Second Annual Networking Conference in May 2012 and she will be hosting the Third Conference in 2013.

[edit] Personal life

Jones married investment banker Al Reynolds on November 13, 2004. Reynolds proposed to Jones during the 2004 NBA All-Star Game The much-publicized wedding was held at Saint Bartholomew's Church in New York City in front of five hundred guests and featured three matrons of honor, twelve bridesmaids, two junior bridesmaids, three best men, twelve groomsmen, three junior groomsmen, six footmen, four ring bearers, and four flower girls. More than thirty corporate "sponsors" donated wedding attire and merchandise for the event in exchange for mentions in the media and on Jones's website.^[15] Immediately after the wedding, Jones added her husband's last name to her own and began using Star Jones Reynolds professionally. In an interview in the August 24, 2007, issue of Entertainment Weekly, she explained that she reverted to Star Jones professionally in order to keep her public persona separate from her private self. On March 9, 2008, MSNBC reported that Jones and Reynolds were divorcing.^[16]

On March 17, 2010, Star underwent cardiac surgery related to a surgery she had three decades earlier for a thoracic tumor.^[17]

[edit] Controversies and legal troubles

In June 2003, Jones was sued by a landscaping company that alleged she had agreed to ensure that the firm would receive credit for its work on a rooftop garden for her Upper East Side penthouse duplex in a quid pro quo exchange. The work was done in advance of an article about her home in the October 2003 issue of Architectural Digest. The Smoking Gun website published a copy of a letter she signed which agreed to the deal. The lawsuit was eventually dismissed in Jones's favor.^[18]

A nonprofit Detroit women's group, Full and Fabulous, accused Jones of theft after they invited her to speak at its "Health, Beauty and Self-Esteem" conference during the 2006 Super Bowl. Full and Fabulous alleged that Jones made changes to her flight itinerary that doubled the travel expenses the group was paying for, and that she spent the bulk of her time attending Super Bowl parties to promote her book rather than being at the conference. Jones-Reynolds' representative refuted the group's claims, insisting that she honored all contractual terms of the deal and that the organization fabricated the allegations for the sake of publicity.^[19]

In July 2012, Jones accused daytime talk show host Anderson Cooper of using his coming-out story to generate higher ratings, to which Anderson responded in October 2012: "As memory serves, in terms of boosting ratings, I seem to recall [Star] hawking her wedding every single day to get free products when she was on 'The View' and I seem to recall her lying about her gastric bypass surgery and making everybody else lie about it as well. So for her to suddenly emerge out of the shadows and suddenly attack me for this, I couldn't believe it."^[20]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Star Jones: Love & Sex Coach at AOL Coaches
• Star Jones at the Internet Movie Database
• Landscaper sues "The View" star, a December 2004 article from The Smoking Gun
• collection of excerpts from Jones' second book
• Star Jones featured on the FOX series Family Guy