Star Jones, born Starlet Marie Jones Lugo, has led a remarkable life, transitioning from a prosecutor to a prominent TV personality in the 1990s. The world met Star Jones in 1997, when she went from Court TV correspondent to one of five co-hosts on Barbara Walters' talk show The View. She was known for her quick wit and take-charge attitude, but also for her rapidly growing weight problem. Throughout her career, Jones has been in the public eye, and her weight has been a frequent topic of discussion. Her journey is not just about physical transformation but also about facing personal struggles, embracing vulnerability, and advocating for health awareness.
Early Career and Public Image
In the early years, Star Jones was photographed rocking her champagne dress and stilettos in public. A few decades after her TV debut, Jones expanded her empire as a journalist and TV personality. Jones donned her zebra-print dress at the premiere of Planet of the Apes. However, as time went on, her weight began to increase.
The Turning Point
In 2002, Jones seemingly began gaining more weight, as seen in the photos from the Eighth Annual Mercedes-Benz Polo Challenge event. By 2003, Star had reached 307 pounds and was diagnosed as morbidly obese. That same year, Star decided to undergo gastric bypass surgery. Jones decided to make some changes after reaching her heaviest weight - 307 pounds. Yet, as her weight melted off in front of the national TV audience, she never addressed her changing body with her fans. In the three years that followed, Star lost 160 pounds.
Gastric Bypass Surgery and the Secret
In August 2003, Jones lay in a pre-op room of a hospital, being prepped for gastric bypass surgery. She hadn't gotten much sleep the night before. She was so angry: How had I allowed myself to get to 307 pounds? That year, she secretly underwent gastric bypass surgery - but never revealed it during her stint on The View. The Jones & Jury alum sported a light pink top and skirt when she was honored during the NBA Wives Luncheon.
Jones started showing off her thinner physique years after she received the gastric bypass surgery. During the 2005 Clive Davis Annual Grammy Party, she turned heads with her satin red dress that highlighted her slimmer figure. Jones surprised her fans with her transformation while promoting her book Shine.
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The former NBC Nightly News correspondent attended The Real White Party in East Hampton in her white dress. However, Jones's decision to keep her surgery a secret created a rift with her audience and colleagues.
The Revelation
In 2007, she admitted to having gastric bypass surgery. She penned an in-depth story for Glamour to reveal she lost 160 pounds in three years after undergoing the procedure. "I actually like seeing the old pictures because what it says to me is, 'You never allow yourself to get there again,'" she also told the reporters when she promoted her book in 2006. "It was dangerous to me. Very dangerous. I was killing myself."
In May 2008, Barbara Walters told Oprah Winfrey she kept Jones' surgery a secret after the journalist asked her to. Jones also wrote a story on Today to open up about her weight-loss journey. "The night before the surgery, I convinced myself that afterward everything would be fine and I could get on with the rest of my life. I had no idea that before I could move on, I would have to face the present and the past as they were, not as I wished them to be," she shared.
Speaking with Diane Sawyer on Good Morning America, Jones answered why she kept the truth about her surgery for so long. "[I was] scared of what other people would think. … For some strange reason, I thought - and it crippled me - that it would diminish who I was," she said. "Everything about my life was so public, mostly through my own doing. … When I lost weight, I somehow thought I was just going to say I'm going to be private about it."
Life After Weight Loss
Jones rocked her baby pink dress during the Apollo Theater Benefit Concert & Awards Ceremony. Jones flaunted her curly hair at the 2011 Angel Ball in New York City. She completed her style with a metallic dark green dress and black shoes. The Celebrity Apprentice alum appeared at the Mercedes-Benz New York Fashion Week, donning a red dress, shoes and stockings. She completed her look with a red purse, massive coat and sunglasses.
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Jones ditched her usual red or black outfit and wore a blue dress at the American Ballet Theatre's 75th Anniversary Diamond Jubilee Spring Gala at The Metropolitan Opera House. The former Inside Edition chief legal analyst dominated the red carpet event of the 14th annual Woman's Day Red Dress Awards. She sported a bright red outfit and tied her hair up to put a spotlight on her fashion. Jones looked hot in pink at the American Ballet Theater Spring Gala in New York. The Law & Order: Special Victims Unit guest cast member brought back her red satin one-shoulder dress for her 21st Annual amfAR Gala New York Benefit look.
Jones dazzled as she wore an eye-catching dress at an event in Las Vegas. During her appearance on the Tamron Hall Show, she disclosed she was morbidly obese for most of her life. "I wasn't fluffy, I wasn't plus size, I wasn't overweight - I was dying," she said at the time. The former Drop Dead Diva judge presented her retro side at the 5th Annual Wearable Art Gala. She donned a floor-length dress with a black fur design and completed her look with a layered necklace and headpiece.
Health Challenges and Advocacy
In 2021, she revealed she was diagnosed with heart disease in January 2010. "In the words of one of my favorite movies, Shawshank Redemption, I truly had to get busy living or get busy dying," Jones told NBC News’ Know Your Value. "So I chose to live, and gastric bypass weight loss surgery actually jump started my road to health … but changing my overall lifestyle has really helped me maintain 140-150 pounds of weight loss for a consecutive 18 years."
Jones showed off the results of her weight-loss journey at the 51st Daytime Emmy Awards. She wore her gold, cream and grey dress that featured a draped skirt and high slit. Speaking with People, she shared advice for people who want to be healthier: "Eat less, move more."
Attorney, author, and original co-host of “The View” turned American Heart Association National Volunteer Star Jones knows heart disease well - she survived (and thrived) after having open heart surgery in 2010. In the fall of 2009, I found myself experiencing some unnerving symptoms. I was really tired, and not in the “I’ve had a busy day” sort of way, but rather I felt absolutely exhausted. I was short of breath. I would get light-headed if I went from seated to standing too quickly. And I was also experiencing frequent and intense heart palpitations. Remember, I’d undergone successful weight loss surgery in 2003. I was eating right and exercising. I was in the best shape of my adult life. I decided to go see my cardiologist, and after extensive testing, I was diagnosed with heart disease in 2010 and told I needed open-heart surgery. Honestly, I was floored. I didn’t think heart disease happened to newly in shape, “young-ish” Black women. I wasn’t aware at the time, but heart disease is the No. 1 killer of Americans, and that holds true even during the ongoing COVID pandemic. Luckily, I came through open-heart surgery without any complications. That was a blessing, and thanks, in part, to scientific advancement funded by the American Heart Association. The 24 sessions over three months were grueling, but so worth it in building back my strength and confidence. Open-heart surgery might have saved my life, but cardiac rehab gave me my life back. After some tough love from a close girlfriend about the state of my health, and specifically my weight, I realized I needed to take back control of my life after being obese or morbidly obese for much of my adult life. Ultimately, that decision saved my life, and though I didn’t know it at the time, it ensured I’d be healthy enough to undergo open-heart surgery years later. You could think of my open-heart surgery as preventative in that it was needed to repair an issue that could have become an emergency down the line. But I didn’t really have a choice, even if I wanted to believe that I did. But my family and friends talked some sense into me. I made the decision to move forward because I’d made the choice several years prior to get - and stay - healthy, and so I wasn’t about to stop. In fact, there were a myriad of issues ailing my heart. There was fluid buildup. My aortic valve wasn’t functioning properly. The truth is, heart disease wasn’t even on my radar, but it should have been. I also wished I’d known that making healthy choices - even small ones - at an early age can form good habits, and often those habits stick with you. In short: it’s never too early to make healthy choices, and your future self will thank you for it. Your health is your greatest asset because without good health, you can’t really do much else. Like many other health issues, heart disease and obesity disproportionately affect Black women. That’s why the American Heart Association (AHA) has committed $230 million to help remove barriers to health equity, and they’ve also committed to publishing more science focused on disparities, anti-racism, and healthy equity in their journals to advance the scientific discourse. Awareness of cardiovascular disease as the No.
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Personal Reflections and Lessons Learned
Star says she wishes she'd had the courage to talk about her decision publicly so that her colleagues wouldn't have felt pressured to lie. "I wish that I had the strength to face my own demons so that I could have allowed someone to help me," she says. It's widely known that Star kept her weight loss method a secret, but she says most people misunderstand why she did that. "It would have been the easiest thing in the world to just say it was gastric bypass," she says.
Star says she'd been scared that someone would ask her that question and she wouldn't know how to answer. "If I fell apart and became Jell-O, I was afraid of what the audience would think," she says. While she knew she could handle the physical aspect of the surgery, she wasn't ready to handle the emotional ramifications. "I didn't know who I was, I didn't know who I was going to be," she says. "Emotionally, I knew that I had to lose the weight, but I didn't realize that I should do therapy. But that's what I did.
Now that Star is at a healthy weight, she says she's finally able to be her true self. "I'm learning every single day," she says. "When you lose another whole person, you try to find out who the authentic you is inside. Star says she doesn't try to be perfect-she just wants to be more honest about who she is.
The journey was far from over. Each day she awakes cautiously, questioning whether she has the emotional reserves required to get her through the day. Four years later, she has been successful in maintaining a healthy weight and am proud of herself for that. She tries to exercise regularly and use the portion control guidelines she was taught when she had the surgery. She's not saying that in order to be happy, women need to be a certain size, but she is saying that we should all strive to be healthy. She still struggle with trying not to let comments about my body affect me. When she feels herself reverting to that place of insecurity, after a beat (or four), she gather herself, take a deep breath and remember what I know to be true: God did not bring me this far to leave me.