The One Show host Alex Jones has opened up about former co-host Jermaine Jenas’ exit from the show.
Jermaine started co-hosting the show with Alex in 2020. Four years later, he departed the evening magazine programme. This followed accusations of sending inappropriate text messages to female BBC employees. Or, to put it more plainly, he was sacked.
Since then, things have gone from bad to worse with Jermaine. It emerged that he had been sexting other women. This ultimately led to the demise of his 13-year marriage to wife Ellie.
So far, Alex has stayed relatively quiet about it all. But this all changed during an appearance on Jamie Laing’s Great Company podcast on Thursday.
The One Show host Alex Jones addresses Jermaine Jenas axe
She began by saying that she had become “good friends” with Jermaine. However, despite this, she claimed to have been “the last to know” about his departure.
“The BBC dealt with it, and I think if people feel uncomfortable, they have to deal with it,” she said.
“If it was my daughter, and she was at work in whatever industry and she felt uncomfortable, I would hope to God that I’d given her the tools to be able to speak up.”
“If she was brave enough to speak up, because it is a brave thing to do, I would hope that the company, corporation, whoever, would deal with it.”
She continued: “Lots of journalists are asked, ‘Have you ever had experiences that are uncomfortable?'”
“I mean, if you go back to the 90s, early 2000s, there was stuff and there were ways that things were said that weren’t great.”
“But, nothing has stuck with me, Nothing makes me shudder. And I know the type of girl I was then, and I wouldn’t have handled it.”
“It’s one of those things that you’d be worried that if your job were on the line, you wouldn’t have said anything,” Jamie added.
To which Alex responded: “Yeah, I know I wouldn’t have said anything, and so I’ve got a lot of respect for the girls that did, because I do think it is an incredibly brave thing to do.”
The moment it all ended
In an interview with The Sun following his firing, Jermaine shared the moment when it all started crumbling.
“I was obviously hoping that I maybe would have got a suspension of some sort,” he explained, adding that he “had to tell her by Monday evening because I knew then that I’d been fired.”
“I just said [to Ellie]: ‘I’ve been sacked from the BBC.’ She said: ‘What for?’ I said: ‘For sending text messages that weren’t appropriate to two girls.'”
“Ellie is absolutely raging,” he said. “She’s human.”
He added: “There’s something in me that’s praying that there is some level of mercy within it all, or understanding of the fact we’re human beings and we make mistakes. Some bigger than others — and mine is a big mistake.”
Since his firing, the former footballer has returned to presenting for the likes of TNT Sports and talkSPORT.
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