ALEX JONES’ PARANOIA OVER MATERNITY LEAVE
THE One Show presenter Alex Jones has spoken out about leaving her full-time job to have a baby and worrying about someone taking her place while on maternity leave.
The 40-year-old, who recently celebrated her milestone birthday, told the Mail on Sunday’s You magazine that BBC colleague Sophie Raworth had warned her off watching recent drama The Replacement, which is about a maternity cover which takes a sinister turn.
Jones, whose son Teddy was born in January, said: “I’d be lying to say I didn’t feel any paranoia when I first left the show, but then you get over it because you realise you can do nothing about it.
“The best bit of advice was from Sophie Raworth, who said, ‘Do not watch it [The Replacement]’. And I didn’t. By the time I had the baby, I had no time to watch it anyway.”
Being away from your job is a double-edged sword, added the Ammanford-born presenter.
She said: “You hope they are doing a good job because you want a show to come back to – it’s a balance. But anyone who says there’s no paranoia is lying. It’s healthy, I think – it shows you respect the job and care about it. “
A healthy respect for her profession has clearly worked for the new mother-of one, who is married to New Zealander Charlie Thomson, as has a generous dose of ambition.
Jones said: “I think especially in the early days, people thought, ‘There’s that Welsh girl who’s a bit clueless.’
“Sometimes I am a bit clueless, but there’s the steely determination that people don’t see very often. I’m more ambitious than I appear.
“With TV, the hardest thing is longevity – to stay relevant and still keep your place on the sofa. The key is to still be there in 20 years and that’s what I want.
“If you love your job, you’re always worried that someone is going to take it away from you. There are a lot of good people around – some who are younger, some who are older too – who’d love to do your role and you’d be an idiot not to be aware of that.
“I still kick myself at the end of some days when I feel the show hasn’t gone particularly well. TV can be more fickle than other industries, but regardless of what you do, you have to care and do your best on a daily basis. That has been instilled in me by my parents.”
The presenter hopes to return to The One Show sofa in late spring once she and Charlie have found a nanny for Teddy.