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Steve Jones has revealed that a story he was assigned about pop star Justin Bieber was the “breaking point” that led to him quitting showbiz in Los Angeles.
The Welsh TV presenter was the guest star on the latest episode of Lily Allen and Miquita Oliver’s hit podcast, Miss Me? while Oliver was away on holiday.
During the conversation, he and Allen compared thoughts on the appeal of LA versus New York, with the pop singer branding LA “vacuous, soulless and horrible” and adding that she was “haunted” by her past behaviour in the city.
Jones, 47, agreed with her verdict but said there was a part of him that would rather be around “fake happy people” than “genuinely miserable people”.
He lived in the Californian city between 2011 and 2012 while serving as host of the first series of The X Factor USA, but decided to call it a day after a stint reporting for Entertainment Tonight.
“There was a story where I was covering the fact that Justin Bieber had just bought a new mattress,” he recalled, “and I thought, ‘I am probably going to kill myself, I cannot do this.’”
Shortly after, Jones said he asked his then-girlfriend if she would move back with him to the UK: “And here we are, 13 years later, about to celebrate our 10th anniversary next month.”
He called meeting his wife, US-born food writer and blogger Phylicia Jackson-Jones, the “one fantastic thing that came out of The X Factor USA”.
“I met her when I was filming, just in a bar in LA,” he said. “She was there, we started talking and she moved in with me about six months later.”
Jones announced that he had been dropped as presenter of The X Factor USA in January 2012. He returned to the BBC the following month to host Let’s Dance for Sport Relief.
He has continued to front programmes including Channel 4’s Sex Box and This Morning alongside Josie Gibson, as well as appearing on the panel show Would I Lie to You? .
Elsewhere during his conversation with Allen, he opened up about his wife’s struggles with endometriosis, a long-term condition where tissue grows in places such as the ovaries and fallopian tubes, and its devastating impact on their attempts to have children.
He also urged Allen to release new music, prompting her to reveal that “there is something happening in the near future”.
“I’m basically putting something out there,” she said. “But it’s not an album. I hope people like it.”
Jones will return for another episode on Monday 26 August. Miss Me? airs on Mondays and Thursdays each week on BBC Sounds, and is also available on all major streaming platforms.
