Star Jones: Get lost

BY JOSEPH PLANTA

Monday, 03 July 2006

VANCOUVER - There were puns a plenty last week, with the departure of Star Jones Reynolds from the ABC talk show The View. The New York Daily News had, 'Star gazing ends.' The CBC headlined, 'Star struck.' The Associated Press had on the wire, 'Star Jones Reynolds erased from 'View.' The San Jose Mercury News lamented 'One less Star,' while the Chicago Sun-Times featured a 'Falling Star.' Calvin Trillin would be proud.

Barbara Walters, the legendary news personality, and co-executive producer of the daytime chatfest, was less than pleased with Jones Reynolds, who sprung the news of her leave-taking on Tuesday's live broadcast. It seems the network, Walters and Jones Reynolds had agreed to announce her departure on Thursday. Jones surprised her colleagues when she broke in during a discussion to announce that she wasn't coming back in the fall. Then she had gone to People magazine and said she felt betrayed and that she had been fired. Walters, who's blazed the trail for female reporters and television personalities in the United States and elsewhere shot back the following day by announcing on the program that Jones was no longer to appear on the show because of things she had said, first in People's story, then on the Ryan Seacrest radio program.

Star Jones, who was once the size of a pachyderm, was a brash and sometimes annoying presence on morning television. She used her girth to her advantage many times butting heads and staking a commanding presence amongst Walters, Meredith Viera, Joy Behar, and the others on the program. She had been a lawyer, and a burgeoning television personality, gaining prominence, as had many, many other lawyers on television thanks to the O.J. Simpson trial.

Then Jones had met Al Reynolds, a banking type, who had proposed marriage, and whose 2004 wedding was as big as Liza Minnelli and David Gest's. Like Gest, there were snarky intimations about Reynolds's sexuality in the press. And unfortunately, in the run up to the wedding, Jones had gone all out, holding up all sorts of companies for freebies for the wedding, demanding all sorts of free stuff in exchange for subliminal and not-so subliminal plugs on the program. Jones has since admitted in interviews last week with both Larry King and Al Roker, that she had gone over-the-top, and abused her prominence to gain swag. Even at the time, there were many rumblings within ABC that Walters and the higher-ups were less than pleased with Jones's constant plugging of companies and products she had been using in preparation for, and at her wedding. Of course, some of her behaviour was under-handed, sleazy and downright dishonest, and she's admitted it negatively affected her standing amongst the audience.

And around the time of her wedding Jones had lost over a hundred pounds. There was a lot of noise about how she had had her stomach stapled, undergoing what is de rigueur for people who are unable to lose weight through diet, exercise, or self-control. In that interview with Roker, who also underwent the medical procedure, but who has acted forthright about the work done on him, Jones said she had had the support of Roker, amongst others through her own "medical intervention," stopping short of saying she has her stomach stapled.

So with losing a bunch of weight and being less than forthright, not to mention Rosie O'Donnell's sharp mockery, and the whole Bridezilla behaviour, it seems ABC saw the writing on the wall. Jones was alienating viewers in certain demographics, and this was viewed by producers and the network as hurting the program. ABC's had wanted Jones fired in November, but Walters demurred claiming that loyalty to Jones prevented her from swinging the axe.

According to a fascinating piece by Joe Hagan, that appeared in New York magazine, on a completely different subject, the ascension of Charles Gibson from Good Morning America to the anchor chair at ABC's World News Tonight, The View's moderator, Meredith Viera had been restless in her role on the chat show. Even then, Viera had been touted as a replacement to Katie Couric on the Today Show, as for well over a year, Couric's departure to CBS and its evening newscast had been the common chatter. One assumes that Walters was looking out for her own best interests, as the show would suffer with both Viera and Jones's departures, especially since they had been with the program since its inception nine years ago. Jones claims that Walters didn't have "her back," and she should have been told then, not in April, when she actually was told ABC would not renew her contract.

So, it's not a question of whether she was fired or not. ABC, as is their right, chose not to renew Jones's contract. They had been encouraged not to, especially in light of Jones's erratic behaviour. Jones goes to People and says she was betrayed and fired. Walters, who frankly was generous, offered Jones the time to find another job, then announce that she was leaving, and leave the program "with dignity." But Jones decided not to, and afforded herself prime appearances on CNN and NBC, and the attention of most who observe television and celebrity, thereby painting herself as a victim, and drawing attention to, guess who, herself.

When Jones is asked why she had chosen to depart from the script and announce her leaving, thereby blindsiding Barbara Walters, to whom she owes much, Jones says she did so to be honest to her fans who mean much to her, because she means so much to them. It is a risible and specious notion frankly. Jones has admitted that she went overboard with her wedding, and was less honest with her dramatic weight loss, and said she was sorry for misleading her supposed fans. Now, she wants to come clean like this? Give everybody a break, Star.

Star Jones thought she could hijack the spotlight for herself, and she has for the last week or so. However, she's shown nothing as to her future plans or her abilities to hold down another prominent job in television. What producer would want to hire someone like her, who with this record of candour as of late, not to mention her reputation off camera? She is certainly not one who is particularly reliable or stable.

This latest episode in the fascinating world of television, celebrity, and ego affords us the opportunity to see how little credit those in television, producers and performers alike, give the viewer in recognising bullshit when we see it.

Barbara Walters would have loved for Jones to go quietly into the rest of her career, without addressing these weighty issues of Jones's weight and her inability to speak with sincerity, but it's clear she was willing to let it slide. She would have lied for Jones.

And Jones would have loved people to believe she was the aggrieved party, and she was full of integrity throughout. Even though she's lost over a hundred pounds and looks half-near emaciated, she's still a fat mess, with an equally fat mouth. Which she should get stapled while she's at it.

***

And it doesn't look like it'll end yet. My favourite moment in the Al Roker interview Jones gave, was when she equated ABC and Disney (which owns the network), to Tyco and Enron. It seems, now Jones is blaming her ouster as a corporate decision. Which, don't get her wrong, she accepts, but not before lumping the network, and her former friends, with the poster children of corporate malfeasance, criminal behaviour and greed.

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An archive of Joseph Planta's previous columns can be found by clicking HERE.