Star Jones’ career has only gone downhill since she alienated everyone on The View by lying about her gastric bypass surgery and securing freebies for her 2004 wedding by mentioning sponsors on the air. She had a talk show on Court Tv/TruTv in 2007, but it was canceled within a year. Now Jones has been fired from her latest job, a six week guest spot on The Insider, after a shouting match with a producer in which security had to be called to escort her off set. Star insisted that the program topics were beneath her and again managed to alienate another employer with her demanding diva attitude:

[Star] landed a six week gig as a panelist on the showbiz program, but security guards escorted her off the set after she engaged in a screaming match with a producer, a show source told The Enquirer.

“At first, Star got along with the producers just fine,” the source divulged. “But as she got more comfortable, she started complaining about the topics they wanted her to discuss. She said they were too trashy and ‘Star doesn’t do trash!”

Star – who famously locked horns with Barbara Walters on “The View” – also sent an e-mail to the show’s host Lara Spencer blasting fellow celebrity panelist Niecy Nash, said the source.

“Star said she couldn’t understand why Niecy was a regular on the show, while she, Star, was not,” said the source.

“Lara was upset by the e-mail, but instead of answering Star, she sent it to Niecy!”

Before Niecy could respond, 47-year-old Star and a producer faced off right before the holiday break, said the source.

“Star had made it clear that she didn’t like what was scheduled for the show that day – what she called ‘young Hollywood bimbos and reality show wannabes,” said the source.

“Star reminded the producers that she was an attorney and could offer intelligent insight on the legal issues of the day, instead of wondering if Jon Gosselin had a new girlfriend!”

“Star said she wanted to add some class to the program, to discuss things that made a difference and not dumb down the show.

“The argument got heated, and then it turned into a shouting match. Star obviously wasn’t going to back down, so the producer asked her to leave, adding they wouldn’t ‘bother’ her anymore with their trivial show.

“Star exploded! She started yelling insults. Finally, the producer called security to escort her off the set and off the studio lot.”

[From The National Enquirer, print edition, February 1, 2010]

Oh that Star, she just “adds class” to everything she’s involved with. I checked Star’s Twitter account to see if she addressed this at all, but she’s mostly tweeting about her faith and politics. She wants universal health care and it’s looking bleaker now that Massachusetts’ went to a Republican. Now that I read Star’s tweets she’s growing on me a little. Her big smiling mug as the background is kind of annoying, but she’s tweeting about being grateful and happy and her Twitter account isn’t as famewh*rish as a lot of other celebrities. Maybe she had a legitimate reason to get all up in someone’s face. After all, Star can’t be expected to talk about Jon Gosselin’s girlfriend. She has to focus on herself and all the swag she can score.

In news that I really hope is made up, In Touch is reporting that much-derided ex View hosts Rosie O’Donnel and Star Jones are teaming up for their own reality show. If this is true, let’s hope it never gets picked up:

It looks like former enemies Star Jones and Rosie O’Donnell have more in common than their mutual disdain for Barbara Walters! The two former co-hosts of The View, who feuded after Rosie criticized Star in 2006 for not disclosing her gastric-bypass surgery, have made amends and are planning a reality show together. “They get along quite well and have a wicked sense of humor when they’re together. Everyone keeps telling them they need to capture it on camera and now they’ve decided to,” a TV insider says. “They know people will tune in to see them.” Although reps for both stars deny the story, the show will combine elements of Oprah and Gayle King’s cross-country trip with Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie’s The Simple Life trek. “They want to show their different personalities as they cope with real-life situations and determine if their new friendship can stand the stress of it all,” says the insider. “They’re hoping to be the new Lucy and Ethel of reality TV.”

[From In Touch, print edition, September 21, 2009]

Ah reality TV, the deceptive refuge for formerly tepid celebrities who have no other route to continued fame or cash. Maybe the key part of that story is that “reps for both stars deny” that Rosie and Star have anything in the works. I really dislike both of these women, but I could see how this type of show might get greenlighted. No one likes Octomom, either, and everyone wanted to see inside her warped world.

One of Rosie O’Donnell’s last public ventures involved staging a terrible variety show last Thanksgiving that was incredibly boring and tanked in the ratings. Star Jones’ had a talk show on CourtTV that ended after one year in early 2008. These two deserve each other, but no one else deserves to be subjected to their high levels of narcissism and nastiness.

Star Jones is shown on 9/2/09. Rosie O’Donnell is shown on 6/11/09. Credit: WENN.com

Two of “The View’s” most controversial castoffs, Star Jones and Rosie O’Donnell, used to talk smack about each other. Rosie, who came in to the top rated estrogen bitch-fest to replace Jones, an original co-host, who left the show amid backlash over her feud with Barbara Walters and the non-stop wedding plugging. O’Donnell stayed on “The View” for a year before shipping out after a series of televised verbal spars with conservative co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck and numerous others – including Jones and Donald Trump. In fact, Rosie once slammed Star on her personal blog, calling her out on the claims that she lost hundreds of pounds by doing pilates, when it was clear that Jones had some kind of surgical intervention. But now, both Rosie and Star say there’s no ill will between them.

It was one of daytime TV’s biggest feuds, but are Rosie O’Donnell and Star Jones making up?!

No feud here! Rosie tells “Extra, “It was never a personal thing with her.” She continues, “We both were strong women… then I sort of watched her get swept away in the insanity of fame.” O’Donnell admits, “We’re actually having dinner next week.”

O’Donnell reveals she changed her opinion about Jones, saying, “I thought it was amazing to see her the other day on ‘Oprah.’ To see her evolved into the woman that she is.” Rosie continued, “I was really proud of her and happy for her.” O’Donnell also reveals, “When she got divorced, I wrote her an email.”

Now the former “View” co-hosts will also be having lunch together for charity. They are currently auctioning off the lunch date to benefit the Figure Skating in Harlem program.

The 47-year-old Rosie confesses she was touched by Star’s honesty, saying, “I know many people who had that surgery [gastric bypass] and nearly all of them had gained weight back. So she should feel very proud of herself. She did a drastic thing to save her health and her life and then to be able to follow through. Many, many people don’t have what it takes to do that. She seems to have gotten her act together and I’m happy for her.”

Although O’Donnell once said Jones was “delusional” when Star said she lost weight the old fashioned way, Rosie now supports the way she handled the situation. “Everyone gets there in their own time. It’s sort of like people saying, ‘Gay people should come out more’… Why didn’t she talk about it? She wasn’t ready to talk about it. But it was just hard to pretend as though we ["The View" co-hosts] believed.”

[From Extra]

I think we are seeing the return of a kinder, gentler Rosie. Late last year she mended fences with long time nemesis Howard Stern – who even offered her some time on one of his Sirius radio channels as a peace offering. Now, Rosie and Star are burying the hatchet. Could make-up hugs and kisses with The Donald be far behind? I don’t know what’s gotten into Rosie lately- perhaps she finally finished menopause or something. But whatever the reason, I like it. Once upon a time, she really was a funny lady – I’d like to see that old Rosie stick around for a while.

Rosie is shown at the 13th Annual Kids Night on Broadway at Madame Tussauds, NY. Photo credits: Fame.

Star Jones appears on Oprah today in an episode about losing weight in the public eye. From the advance clips she actually comes off as somewhat humble and less self-involved than she was before she was axed from The View.

Star says she had gastric bypass surgery in 2006 not to take an easy way out – it wasn’t – but because her weight was so drastically affecting her health that her doctor told her she was going to die. Jones says she was – for all intents and purposes – an addict, and despite the consequences to her health, she simply could not stop eating.

Star Jones — whose rapid weight loss played into her rocky exit from “The View” in 2006 — denies she took an easy way out having gastric bypass surgery and without the changes, Jones was told she would have died.

“I’m still 300 pounds in my head some days,” Jones told Oprah Winfrey in a taped episode airing Wednesday. Jones admitted she was scared to disappoint people and ashamed that she wasn’t able to control her weight.

“… I was an addict for all practical purposes, that I had never stuck to a real diet, that I’d never stuck to a real exercise program, and that when confronted by my doctor and the doctor said if you don’t make changes, you will die. I had no choice.” Jones said. “When you hear people say, oh, you took the easy way out, I would have longed for an easy way. It was not an easy way. It was this — the hardest struggle of my whole entire life and I still struggle.”

Jones responded to remarks by former co-host Barbara Walters that after the surgery, the show’s audience couldn’t relate to Jones anymore.

“I was hurt and upset initially,” Jones said. “I’m so sorry that I placed a burden on my colleagues. I never asked them to lie.”

[From the Chicago Sun-Times]

I’ve always been sort of confused by the accusation that people who get gastric bypass or gastric band surgery are taking the easy way out. It seems like a pretty extreme, hardcore, and painful way to go about it. I’d rather do a million diets than have to go that route. To me it’s what people do as an absolute last resort – whether it’s because they can’t otherwise control a food addiction, are suffering from diabetes (it has a high instance of reversing the disease even before significant weight loss is achieved), or simply have bodies that are resistant to weight loss. And the side effects sound really miserable, and they can be permanent.

I think the reason The View’s audience couldn’t relate to Star after her surgery wasn’t that she was thin; it was how obnoxious she was. She already came across as self-absorbed and full of herself at times (the whole fiasco about her constantly using the show to promote her wedding didn’t win her any fans), and the weight loss appeared to magnify those personality traits in her. Getting fired from the show did seem to humble Star, and when she admitted to the surgery she became a little less disliked in the public eye.

It’s time for Star to become something other than “the lady who got weight loss surgery and was fired from The View.” Her CourtTV show was canceled, and it doesn’t seem like she’s been up to much since then. Dragging up tired feuds is getting old.

Here’s Star Jones leaving her Manhattan hotel on January 20th. Images thanks to WENN .

Boy you’ve gotta feel badly for Star Jones. Not only has she been dealing with some wicked maintenance issues in her apartment, but it’s forced her to rent some new digs at a whopping $17,861 a month – for “comparable living arrangements.” Apparently it’s costly to live such a tacky existence. Star is suing the building for $700,000, claiming she hasn’t been able to live in her apartment since plumbing (and thus mold) issues became unbearable in 2006.

Star Jones has lost a “view” again. In papers filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, the celebrity lawyer and TV personality says leaks and mold have forced her out of her Upper East Side triplex penthouse – and now she’s suing her building for $700,000.

“As a result of said damage and environmental condition, it is unhealthy and dangerous to reside in the premises. As such, I have obtained comparable living arrangements at the costs of $17,861 a month,” Jones said in her suit against the condo board.

The suit says the board agreed to fix the water problems back in 2004, but never did. Conditions got so bad that Jones “has been denied the full use and occupancy of her home” since March 2006.

A friend of Jones said the mold is especially hazardous because Star suffers from asthma. A building representative could not be reached for comment. Architectural Digest called her penthouse “unapologetically glamorous” when the magazine featured it several years ago.

[From the New York Post]

Normally I wouldn’t be able to sympathize with Star because she’s… well Star Jones. Nor would it be easy to feel badly for anyone able to afford $17,861 a month in rent. But New York City landlords, management companies, and buildings (whichever your living situation falls under) are notorious for refusing to fix any problem, big or little. Everyone’s got a nightmare landlord story – in fact the only rare story is hearing about a good landlord. This is why I will never leave my apartment. It’s ugly and has nails in the floor that poke up at random, but my landlord lives below and makes us join his family on holidays.

As long as Star informed the building’s super about the issue, it sounds like this is all their responsibility. While you could argue that she’s not very intelligent in terms of her personal or professional decisions, she is legally savvy and knows her rights. The only thing I find surprising is that it took her so long to file the suit. I’m assuming she’s tried to negotiate and settle out of court, and hasn’t had any luck. I never thought I’d say this, but I hope Star wins.

Here’s Star Jones at Gabrielle’s Gala Benefitting Gabrielle’s Angel Foundation for Cancer Research at Cipriani Wall Street on Wednesday. Images thanks to WENN.

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

Star Jones and Barbara Walters didn’t part company on The View on amicable terms and they’re still not willing to bury the hatchet and move on. Barbara talks about Star candidly in her new upcoming memoir, and includes details about how she used The View to promote wedding sponsors and lied about her gastric bypass surgery.

Barbara Walters said Star was dishonest, greedy on “The View”
Walters gave details of her book in an interview on Oprah yesterday, saying “We had to lie on the set every day because [Star] said it was portion control and Pilates. Well, we knew it wasn’t portion control and Pilates. And the whole point of the program is honesty.” Barbara also said that the viewers didn’t relate to Star anymore after that big obvious lie and that they turned on her.

She dished candidly on Star’s freebie wedding and the way she took advantage of sponsors, saying “The audience, instead of seeing her as this lovely, romantic bride, began to see her as a greedy bride.” Barbara also made it clear that Star manipulated her by giving an interview to People announcing she was leaving The View before it was covered on the show. [via Oprah.com]

Star already admitted to gastric bypass and to first telling View co-hosts
That’s rude of Barbara and all, but it’s not like she’s telling us anything we didn’t know. Star herself eventually admitted she had gastric bypass surgery, as if it wasn’t painfully obvious to everyone following her super rapid weight loss. She told Glamour, in an article published last August, that she kept it quiet because “I didn’t know if the surgery would work. I had never stuck to a diet or committed to exercise for more than a month.”

Star also admitted to Glamour that she told her View co-hosts firsts, so it’s not like Walters is giving us new or private information about Ms. “Wedding for Sale” Jones, she’s just saying she didn’t like the way she handled herself.

Star issues scathing response to Barbara
The newly-separated unemployed Star is showing us all why she’s persona non grata on television now – she really is nasty and can’t wait to attack back. She issued a statement laying into Barbara and personally insulting her, saying Barbara’s other revelations in her memoir about having an affair with a senator 20 years ago humiliated an innocent family “for the sake of selling a book”:

“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,” Jones told Us. “It speaks to her true character.”

[From US Magazine]

Star should have stewed in her juices for a while before she barked back at Barbara. Now she has even less chance at getting some kind of entertainment career. She’s a lawyer, so maybe she can go work insane hours at a law firm or something. She seems like she’d be really good at scaring people on her clients’ behalf.

Update: Here’s the video. The part where Barbara dishes about Star starts at about 3 minutes in:

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.