Is America ready for the new Star Jones?

‘I wanted to have fun in TV again’
Jones’ new show combines her love of law and pop culture. She hopes to affect change by engaging her audience and guests in meaningful dialogue that explores various “conflict resolutions and ethical dilemmas.”

“I wanted to have fun in TV again,” she said slowly. “I wanted to make television fun, so I did an entire year of self-assessment. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I wanted to really assess who I am and how people perceive me. Well, people will perceive you the way you act. So, I wanted to correct some things about myself so that there would not be any misconceptions.

“That’s why you see me being very comfortable with the recreation of Star. I’m not ashamed that I need glasses (which are atop her head) for distance. I did not feel like I needed to have all of that hair, which was typical Star Jones, or the extra lashes or the heavy makeup.”

Other than the cosmetic changes, Jones discovered that she didn’t like the fact that some people considered her difficult. She admitted that she’s demanding, but more so on herself than anyone else. She also was dismayed that she allowed herself to lose touch with her audience and fans.

And she had to get over herself and not take things so personally.

“I also learned, and this is a really big lesson for me, all you can do is control the truth around you,” Jones said. “People will always see what they want to see regardless of what the truth is and you don’t have the ability to control it. You might be able to tell them, you might be able to show them, but some people are just going to believe what they want to believe. And that’s alright because it doesn’t change the truth.”

‘I want to be respected more’
Make no mistake. Jones might not be losing sleep worrying about what people think of her, but she definitely wants to be liked.

“You want people to like you,” she said emphatically. “That is actually something that an insecure person says because I used to say it. That’s just a lie, yes you do. Everybody wants to be liked. I want to be respected more. And I want to be respected for being a person of integrity. And I do think that people like me. They may not always agree with me and I don’t need you to always agree with me. I need you to give me the benefit of sitting down and having a conversation with me.”

At 45, Jones is experiencing the same kind of mid-life epiphany many women do when some of those outer layers start peeling off, and the person they were always meant to be emerges. Like many celebrities, Jones not only bought the hype, she invested heavily into it. Sadly, when you live in a celebrity-obsessed culture that gives 20-year-olds with DUI convictions the keys to the kingdom, it’s rather difficult not to become exceedingly delusional.

Will people like the new Star Jones? Maybe, if they get the chance to sit down with her and chat about evolution and other such things. Will folks watch her show? Well, since there were no clips, it’s hard to say. There’s a new daytime talk show hatched every other week and Ellen DeGeneres and Oprah are the only ones with extended contracts.

And although Sassy Star has given birth to Savvy Star, there was something overtly disingenuous about that cat-and-mouse game she played with the reporters during the morning press conference when she refused to explain how she lost that other person she used to carry around. Her explanation for playing that game, however, did seem sincere — particularly for those of us who know who convinced her to lose the weight and why.

“That’s a whole lot for a human being to handle, not just physically, but emotionally,” she said. “And it has taken me a long time to feel comfortable to talk about it.”

Hopefully that works for the 10 people in the room who still care.

Star quotes On the Rosie-Elisabeth feud: “I haven’t seen the show since I left, however, I heard about it. It was on the Internet and everything. I like conflict in terms of opinion and I was surprised it would blow up in that way. We hope to have conflict on our show constantly, but it will never be done in an insulting, embarrassing, humiliating way. It’s not designed to be that way. Grown people disagree every day but it should not be accusatory with a finger pointing in your face or calling people (names) and all that stuff. That’s not the way to debate and definitely not the way to learn anything. Conversations should effect change, but it should never be insulting and adding to the culture of hate. I’m surprised it disintegrated into that. It didn’t need to.” On her feelings about “The View”: “You’ve not heard me say one bitter word since I left and you won’t. I’m not going to participate in that culture. It’s not who I am. There’s no bitterness. It’s a new chapter. People get fired everyday — sad to say — in this country and what’s really the measure of a person is your ability to regroup, reorganize and change up! That’s what I did with this brand new show. This is a dream come true. I get to do a live show every day!” On Don Imus: “What bothered me about Imus was not that he referred to someone in that way, but that he referred to a group of young women who have done everything we as a society ask you to do. We ask you to go and excel and be smart and to be shining examples and to achieve more than anybody else. And they did exactly what we as a society asked them to do and Don Imus had the inability to distinguish them from other young women who have not made all of those good choices. That’s crossing the line. You have to use good judgment. In reality, he didn’t get fired for what he said. He got fired because his advertisers and thus, the consumer, said we don’t want that any more. The consumer is the ultimate focus group.” On Isaiah Washington: “Every time something has to do with conflict or indifference, it doesn’t make it racist, it doesn’t make it anti-Semitic, it doesn’t make it homophobic. Sometimes you just say stupid stuff and there’s no rehab for stupid stuff. And sometimes dumbness requires, ‘oooh Lord, I was dumb.’ And that’s what I think we as a society forget. I was dumb and I’m trying to be better and let’s move on.” On Paris Hilton: “If you get pulled over and you were driving (drunk) not once, but twice, in my courtroom, I would ask for some jail time. And the judges in Brooklyn would have given you some jail time and you would have been in the Brooklyn House of detention, OK? And that’s just the way the world works for everybody.”

Miki Turner is a freelance TV producer/writer in Los Angeles. She can be reached at

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