I gotta be honest: I really could care less about Star Jones. But I will say this: damn, she looks good. I don’t know how much weight she’s lost, but it’s gotta be a ridiculous amount. She’s downright skinny. I know you probably don’t care much more about her than I do, but there was one very interesting dynamic to the conversation between Jones and the more vocal writers in the audience: they were downright pissed at her for not wanting to offer up more details about her show.
She did, however, offer her thoughts on the recent goings-on on “The View.” “I was a part of an amazing pop culture experience,” Jones began diplomatically, “and Barbara Walters gave me the opportunity of a lifetime to go on and do television that I really wanted to do, so I’m not going to do anything that damages that warm feeling that I had. I’m not going to pile on. I’m not going to participate in any of the silliness that might make excitement. Okay? Because it’s not me. And more importantly, it would destroy something that I love very much. But if you want to know something I’m disappointed in, it’s the fact that there is no person of color who has been permanently placed as a part of the cast of ‘The View.’ And I’ll tell you why. Not just for aesthetic purposes, but one of the roles that I played was in an editorial purpose. We all sat in the back and brought different values to the table and when you are putting forth a show, you need to make it look like the fabric of society and not just look that way from the outside, but feel that way from the inside. So that’s the only thing that I would encourage; that a permanent person of color who is a professional because that was my job, to bring the facts to the forefront.”
As was gradually revealed during the course of the panel, Jones has done a piece for Glamour Magazine where she details the story behind her dramatic physical transformation, but, good lord, it took her forever; she kept being evasive about the whole thing, and it wasn’t until the last few moments that she finally conceded where the information would turn up. This delay, of course, resulted in her being peppered with questions about who was doing the interview, with people throwing out names like Barbara Walters, Larry King, and so forth. (One wise guy asked, “Is it me?”)
The biggest issue, though, was that she really wasn’t talking much about her show, either, offering up precious little in the way of details as far as what could be expected. Indeed, it reached the point where one writer asked Jones if she had any idea what kind of P.R. damage she was causing by being so elusive about all these things.
Jones was skeptical that this was the case, but several reporters immediately piped up and said, “Yes, that’s absolutely the case.”
“Well,” replied Jones, “since you all are the ones that are the keepers of the key, I guess so. In all honesty, I think over the last four years, you all have watched me change so much on television. You’ve seen me gain a whole person and lose a whole person, and I hope that you have understood if you were to put yourself in my position that that’s a whole lot for a human being to handle, not just physically, but emotionally. And it has taken a long time for me to feel comfortable to talk about it, to talk about it honestly and openly and to allow myself to be vulnerable and allow you into my life in that way. I’ve taken people on my journey publicly for so many years, and this was something that I could not do. And I really want the opportunity to express that to you in a way that’s open and fair and honest, and this is not the format to do it.”
A writer countered with the following question: “If, on your show, you have a guest appear and there’s an obvious answer — an obvious question to be asked from that person sitting right in front of you and that person refuses to discuss it, goes off in another direction, begs off, how will you handle that?”
Kudos to Jones for her smackdown of a response: “I hope to handle it with the same sort of gentleness that you’ve handled me.”
Ouch.
