Star Jones has decided to let it out about how she feels she was treated by her former co-hosts on The View. Star abruptly left the show in 2006, surprising even Barbara Walters with her announcement. Jones has previously said she felt betrayed by Walters, but her words now are about all the women she worked with on the show.

Star Jones is speaking out about how she was treated during her departure from The View in 2006.

“Those girls were hateful,” Jones says of her former co-hosts.

[From People.com]

In a hateful little statement of her own, when asked about her former husband, Al Reynolds’ YouTube videos telling the world that he is still in love with her, all Ms. Jones had to say was “I’m not in love with him.”

She says she’s ready to be in love, though. Star was recently seen kissing chef Herb Wilson in the stands at the U.S. Open so we may be able to look forward to another lavish, corporate sponsored wedding in the future. It really was an ingenious plan. Maybe not too classy, but commercially ingenious.

In a new interview in the November issue of Essence magazine, Jones also opens up about “falling into a depression” after losing her self-titled Court TV show last year; her ongoing dispute with Barbara Walters (“Barbara set me up”); and her divorce from Al Reynolds, which was finalized in September.

[From People.com]

While I wouldn’t wish depression on anyone, Star Jones just doesn’t recognize that she’s not a beloved or trusted personality. To fall into a depression after her most recent stab at television was cancelled means that she honestly thought people wanted to listen to her in the first place and was disappointed they didn’t. People don’t forget when you lie and take them for fools and Star blatantly told her core audience on The View that she lost over 160 pounds by exercising and eating right, insinuating she was better than the gastric surgery she was speculated to have had. She then thought everyone would respect and empathize with her when she admitted to the surgery. The course of her career since then shows that people didn’t do either. Jones is in talks again to return to unscripted TV, so she still hasn’t gotten the point.

Star Jones is shown at The Clinton Global Initiative afterparty at the MOMA on 9/24/08. Credit:
Michael Carpenter / WENN

Al Reynolds decided to announce now, well after the media’s interest in his failed marriage to Star Jones has faded, that he’s not gay and has his own career apart from being Star’s ex husband. He hired a PR firm and has released several videos on YouTube, saying he wants to public to get to know him.

Reynold’s PR guy went on CNN Headline news to show segments from the clips and explain Reynold’s motivations. He said his client “is a very different person than that guy who’s been characterized by the media.”

He said “enough time has passed that it’s time for him to define himself exclusive of Star Jones” and that they needed to address these topics in the media.

On the rumors that he’s gay
Reynolds says he’s not a homosexual and that people should know the damage the speculation has caused to his professional and personal life.

Reynolds explained that he’s from humble beginnings in the South and that he was taught as a child to take great pride in his appearance. He said “some people call that kind of soft” and he said “metrosexual” is also an acceptable term.

He said he used to work on Wall Street managing multimillion dollar accounts well before he met Star and that he now works as a professor and is getting his doctorate. Reynolds said “that trumps all the gossip.” He also says that he had an agreement with Star to leave his career and support hers instead.

On the endorsements Star got for their wedding
Star Jones was widely criticized for getting companies to provide free services for her 2004 wedding to Reynolds by mentioning them on The View, the talkshow she co-hosted at the time. It became a huge controversy and contributed to Star’s abrupt departure from the show.

In the tape shown on CNN, Reynolds said “I wasn’t aware of all the endorsement stuff. I have to be honest with you. A lot of this, when I came into it, I just thought maybe that’s how it is for celebrities. Clearly, as a businessman if I knew this was going to affect us and our marriage in any way I would never have allowed us to participate in the nature that we did.” He went on to add that it’s not like any of the companies who endorsed the wedding had any complaints though.

The PR guy said that it wasn’t like Reynolds was oblivious to the sponsorships of their wedding, but that he stepped back and let Star plan everything and he just wasn’t aware of the implications.

On his relationship with Star now: “It’s tender”
Reynolds said “We’re cordial, but this is a difficult time for [us] and it’s actually one of the reasons I decided to speak.” He got all teary-eyed and said “Our relationship is a little tender and hopefully over time we can heal a lot of that and we can become friends again. That’s what really is how we started this relationship.” He said “I never really dated anyone like Star before… I fell in love with her mind.”

Al admitted he still wears his wedding ring and added “it hasn’t settled in yet, I still love her.” His PR guy said he doesn’t want to get back together with Star, but that it’s still painful for him. Star and Reynolds are not talking now.

Reynolds is writing a book, but it’s not a tell-all
He said “Being in the public eye, I definitely want to use this opportunity to educate and motivate and inspire people.”

He’s writing a financial how-to book to help people manage their money. He’s not going to write a tell-all, explains his PR person, and he’s not about to trash Jones. There was a pre-nup and a confidentiality agreement, and he probably can’t do that without repercussions anyway.

He definitely doesn’t come across as a straight guy, but maybe he’s just a gentle type of person who is emotional. You can see that he really loved Star and is sad that their marriage ended, and he also seems to have been trying to live up to an ideal set by his large family. He was probably attracted to a more domineering type of woman and ended up steamrolled in that relationship.

Here are links to the YouTube videos, which stupidly have embedding disabled.
The Al Reynolds you don’t know
Al Reynolds and Star Jones
Al Reynolds’ true passion

Star Jones and Al Reynolds are shown at Diddy’s White Party on 9/2/07. Credit: Michael Carpenter / WENN. They are also shown at the NAACP Image Awards on 2/25/06. Credit: Nikki Nelson / WENN

The divorce between Al Reynolds and Star Jones apparently came as a shock to Al. Though the nature of Al’s sexual orientation has long been disputed (it’s really hard not to make a Big Gay Al reference here – so I want credit for holding back) apparently he was head-over-heels for Star, and wanted nothing to do with the divorce. In fact he’s still so into her that Al’s mother is worried he won’t be able to pick himself up and carry on without the former prosecutor/former View co-host/former Court TV host. Star’s a lot of former things – I’m not even sure what she currently is.

Despite reports that he engaged in a post-split champagne party with an entourage of sexy singles, Al Reynolds’ mother claims her son was crushed after his marriage to Star Jones fell apart. In an interview with In Touch magazine, Ada tried to set the record straight.

“(Al) is so hurt and so sad,” his mother insisted. “He did not want this divorce at all. He wanted to stay married. I think Star wanted the divorce, not Al.” Ada admitted the relationship between Al and Star initially came as a surprise to her. “I truly believed that he would never get married. He never seemed interested.”

Now she fears how he’ll make it as a single man. “Honestly, I don’t think that Al will move on from this. I am very concerned for him.”

[From MSNBC’s Tabloid Tidbits]

A lot of people are saying that Star seems to think that she can get someone better, now that she’s thinner. There’s a lot of gossip that she’s dating married NBA player Dwyane Wade, though he has of course issued a “We’re just very good friends,” response.

“Star is an unbelievable woman. We have a great, great relationship. As friends,” Wade said Thursday of the state-of-play between him and the former View co-host. “We’re friends, just like a lot of celebrities.”, he insisted during his guest spot alongside Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith on the light-hearted TNT show Inside the NBA.

“Are y’all close friends? … Are you the kind of friends that drink out of one cup with two straws?” Smith asked, referring to a much-discussed photo of Wade, 28, and Jones, 46, at a tennis match. “Those kind of friends?”

“We are friends. That’s all,” repeated Wade, who is married to his high school sweetheart. The couple have two sons.

[From People]

Married or not, I wouldn’t want to be linked to Star Jones either. That woman will eat you alive. And I don’t mean that in the fat joke way. In Touch noted that Al Reynolds gave up his well-respected banking job to manage Star’s career after she was booted from Court TV. But when he started working on a book at teaching at Florida Memorial University, Star saw that as abandonment. Be wary Dwyane Wade: if you’re not all about Star, she will take one of those straws you two were sharing and somehow manage to strangle you with it. And she’s a former prosecutor, so she’ll probably know how to get away with it too.

Header of Star and Al at Diddy’s “The Real White Party” on February 9th. Images thanks to WENN. Here’s Star and Dwyane watch the women’s final tennis match at the 2008 Sony Ericsson Open in Key Biscayne, Florida on April 5th. Images thanks to PR Photos.

Star Jones has finally filed for divorce from her husband of nearly three and a half years, investment banker Al Reynolds. She filed the paperwork on March 26, and according to OK! Magazine it was considered an “Uncontested Matrimonial” case and was sealed. Star must have been pissed that no one picked up the news yet, because she’s issued a statement to ET making sure we all know about it and asking for privacy:

The TV host filed in NYC on March 26 and it was marked as a “Uncontested Matrimonial” case by the court and the records were sealed.

Star tells ET in a statement, “Several years ago I made an error in judgment by inviting the media into the most intimate area of my life. A month ago I filed for divorce. The dissolution of a marriage is a difficult time in anyone’s life that requires privacy with one’s thoughts. I have committed myself to handling this situation with dignity and grace and look forward to emerging from this period as a stronger and wiser woman.”

[From OK! Magazine]

The National Enquirer reported in their March 17 issue that Star had kicked Al out of their NY home and was planning to divorce him. They were said to be fighting over their finances after Star lost her job as a talk show host at Court TV. Al was said to be “either at the gym or playing golf” while she was off earning money. After she lost her job and he was still loafing around it was the last straw for her. It is also said that the “rumors” of his sexual preferences were too much for her to take.

It’s not surprising that these two are getting divorced, but that it took so long. Given how much of a freebie hound Star is, she’ll probably figure out a way to get stuff in exchange for whatever promotion she can provide. I’m surprised her statement didn’t say something like, “I’m getting over my divorce with the help of ‘Lee Press On Nails,’ which come in many colors to match your outfits and moods and are available at CVS Outlets nationwide.” You know they would only have to send her a year’s supply and she’d be all over that.

Thanks to PRPhotos for the header, taken at the Daytime Emmy Awards on 04/28/06.