From 1986 to 1991, Jones was a prosecutor with the Kings County District Attorney's Office in
Brooklyn, New York. In 1992, she was elevated to senior assistant district attorney. She 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. In 1994, she was given her own
court show,
Jones & Jury, which mimicked the
arbitration-based reality format of ''
The People's Court'', though with a blended talk show like set and style. Although the show was canceled after only one season, it made Jones the first
Black person to serve as a court show judge. Though not the
first female to serve as a court show judge, Jones is the first female to preside over the court show subcategory of arbitration-based reality programming, only
Joseph Wapner preceding her. Jones then became chief legal analyst on
Inside Edition, where she led 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.
The View In 1997, Jones joined
The View as one of its original four co-hosts. Jones' nine-season tenure on
The View was marked by controversy at times. Jones, who had been diagnosed as morbidly obese, began to undergo dramatic weight loss beginning in 2003. In a September 2007 essay in
Glamour magazine, she revealed that she had undergone
gastric bypass surgery in August 2003, resulting in a loss of over three years. Many criticized Jones for her initial dishonesty when she claimed she had lost weight via diet and exercise.
Barbara Walters told
Oprah Winfrey in May 2008 that she had kept Jones' gastric bypass surgery a secret because Jones had asked her to, and that saying otherwise on the show had turned the audience off. When she married investment banker Al Reynolds in 2004, Jones talked about her wedding plans on
The View for months beforehand, including "plugs" (public mentions) for her suppliers, such as the wedding invitations, clothing, and airlines. It was later revealed that Jones had pushed product-placement in exchange for receiving those products and services for free. ABC claimed that her excessive self-promotion alienated viewers. On April 21, 2006, ABC told Jones that it would not renew her contract for the following season. Jones did not mention on air that her contract had not been renewed. In an interview with
People, Jones said she had been told in April that her contract would not be renewed. Jones said that the decision to leave was not her own, saying, "What you don't know is that my contract was not renewed for the 10th season... I feel like I was fired." Walters said she had been "blindsided" by Jones' announcement on air the previous day. ABC said that viewers did not like Jones talking about her weight loss and her wedding preparations. Jones' departure caused a rift between her and Walters that lasted nearly six years. In May 2008, in response to allegations in Barbara Walters's autobiography,
Audition, Jones told
Us Weekly, "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. When the series went into summer reruns, only programs in which she had been absent from the panel were rebroadcast. Jones' name was removed from the opening credits, leaving only Walters,
Joy Behar, and
Elisabeth Hasselbeck. Jones was eventually replaced by
Sherri Shepherd in September 2007. On February 22, 2012, Jones returned to
The View as a guest, and has made subsequent guest appearances since then.
truTV On March 7, 2007, Jones announced that she would return to her original network,
Court TV—now rebranded
truTV—as its new executive editor of daytime programming, and that she would host an eponymous live weekday talk show based on the law and pop culture.
Star Jones premiered on August 20, 2007, as a guest-driven live broadcast (with taped segments) covering recent stories from the worlds of pop culture, entertainment, crime, and justice. Just six months later, her show was canceled, and it was announced that Jones was leaving truTV due to "changes in their programming selection." The final episode of
Star Jones aired on February 1, 2008. Jones received the balance on her $24 million, three-year contract, and the network stated that Jones was eliminated from the channel's lineup because it deemed Jones "too serious" for its tabloid-focused coverage. However, according to
The Washington Post, "[Jones'] show averaged 186,000 viewers and, by its final telecast, was down in the neighborhood of 85,000." In January 2011, the talk show was featured among "10 Notable Talk Show Failures" by CNBC.com.
Other appearances From September 2004 to September 2005, Jones was a red-carpet host for the
E! television network, conducting interviews at awards shows. E! declined to renew her contract after one year. Jones has hosted or guest-hosted numerous cable programs, including the
HGTV program
House Hunters in
New York City (which "scored the largest household ratings in the cable channel's history"), the
Michael Eric Dyson radio show,
Larry King Live (where she interviewed
Beyoncé Knowles while King was on vacation), and
The Bad Girls Club Season 2 reunion on the
Oxygen Network. In addition, she has made acting appearances on
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (where she played a former incarnation of herself—a Brooklyn prosecutor named Star Jones—in the eighth-season finale), and as a judge in
Drop Dead Diva in August 2012. She has also served as a legal analyst for
The Insider and
Dr. Phil, and appeared on
The Wendy Williams Show. 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. Jones was also a contestant 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. Jones became the current judge on
Divorce Court starting with the program's 40th season, on September 19, 2022. She replaced
Faith Jenkins.
Books Jones is the author of ''You Have to Stand for Something, or You'll Fall for Anything
, a collection of autobiographical essays published in 1998. Her second book, Shine: A Physical, Emotional, and Spiritual Journey to Finding Love
(2006), detailed changes she made to reshape her life, including her marriage and dramatic weight loss. She released a third book in March 2011, Satan's Sisters
, a roman à clef about a fictional television talk show featuring five women of clashing temperaments. A scripted television series based on Satan's Sisters
, titled Daytime Divas'', aired for one season on
VH1 from June 5 to July 31, 2017. Jones served as an executive producer on the series, and guest-starred as herself in the July 24, 2017, episode. ==Affiliations==