JONES
Starlet
(Star
Jones)

• 1. TV career

Starlet Marie Jones Lugo, better known as Star Jones, is an American lawyer, journalist, television personality, fashion designer, author, and women's and diversity advocate. She is best known as one of the first co-hosts on the ABC morning talk show The View, which she appeared on for nine seasons from 1997–98 through 2005–06. She was also one of sixteen contestants of the fourth installment of The Celebrity Apprentice in 2011, coming in fifth place.

She currently serves as the host of Divorce Court.

TV career

From 1986 to 1991, Jones was a prosecutor with the Kings County District Attorney's Office in Brooklyn, New York. In 1992, she was elevated to senior assistant district attorney. She was recruited by Court TV in 1991 as a commentator for the William Kennedy Smith rape trial and spent several years as a legal correspondent for NBC's Today and NBC Nightly News.

In 1994, she was given her own court show, Jones & Jury, which mimicked the arbitration-based reality format of The People's Court, though with a blended talk show like set and style. Although the show was canceled after only one season, it made Jones the first Black person to serve as a court show judge. Though not the first female to serve as a court show judge, Jones is the first female to preside over the court show subcategory of arbitration-based reality programming, only Joseph Wapner preceding her.

Jones then became chief legal analyst on Inside Edition, where she led the coverage of the O. J. Simpson murder case. She was the only reporter to interview Simpson during his civil trial, which she covered for American Journal.