HEARTBROKEN: Alex Jones emotionally reveals key moment she could ‘be herself’ on The One Show
Alex Jones has revealed the emotional moment she realised she could finally “be herself” on The One Show, after the coronavirus pandemic transformed her relationship with viewers.
The 49-year-old presenter has been a familiar face on the BBC programme for 16 years, but she believes the extraordinary circumstances of 2020 marked a major turning point both for the show and for her personally.
During lockdown, millions of people were confined to their homes and often had very little face-to-face contact with others.
For some viewers, the presenters they saw on television became a familiar and reassuring presence at the end of a difficult day.
Alex said letters and messages sent to the programme helped her understand just how important that connection had become.
Looking back, she admitted the memories can still make her emotional.
Pandemic Changed Alex’s Relationship With Viewers
Reflecting on how The One Show has developed throughout her time on the programme, Alex said the changes happened “quite organically”.
But lockdown was different.
She described it as a major moment when both she and the programme’s former editor Rob Unsworth began to understand their audience in a new way.
According to Alex, viewers often arrived at The One Show immediately after watching difficult news reports and needed something that offered reassurance.
“They needed reassurance at the end of sometimes quite a dark news bulletin,” she explained.
That created a different relationship between the presenters and people watching at home.
“I felt that we became really good friends during the pandemic,” Alex said.
Many viewers wrote to the BBC explaining that they had spent entire days alone and that the faces appearing on the programme were sometimes among the only people they regularly saw.
Alex admitted remembering those messages remains deeply moving.
“There were always people writing in and saying… they hadn’t seen anybody,” she recalled.
For her, the experience showed that The One Show had become more than simply an entertainment and current affairs programme during that period.
‘I Knew I Could Be Myself’
Alex said the programme changed naturally during lockdown and became particularly important to its audience.
That shift also gave her something personally valuable: confidence.
She felt she finally understood exactly who she was speaking to every evening.
“I understood who the viewer was,” she said.
“I knew I could be myself.”
Alex added: “I was allowed to be myself. I’d been accepted.”
For a broadcaster who had spent years presenting on national television, that realisation gave her greater freedom and helped her grow into the role.
She believes the programme has continued building on that connection in the years since.
And despite The One Show now having been on air for two decades, Alex remains convinced it still has an important role.
“I think it’s still a show that is needed,” she said.
Alex Has Fronted Some of the BBC Show’s Biggest Moments
Over her 16 years on The One Show, Alex has helped guide viewers through major national events.
Among the most significant was a special programme broadcast shortly after the death of Queen Elizabeth II at the age of 96.
Alex presented alongside Gethin Jones as they reflected on the monarch’s nearly 71-year reign.
They were joined by writer Frank Cottrell-Boyce, who had helped create the memorable Platinum Jubilee sketch featuring the Queen and Paddington Bear just months before her death.
Despite her long television career, Alex recently admitted that becoming a presenter once felt almost impossible.
Growing up in Ammanford, Carmarthenshire, she dreamed about working in broadcasting but was initially afraid to tell anyone.
“When I was a little girl growing up in south Wales, I thought I’d like to be a presenter, but I was too scared to say anything,” she recalled.
Alex said she simply did not see people from her background becoming national television broadcasters.
Years later, she has become one of the BBC’s most recognisable presenters.
But for Alex, it was the extraordinary circumstances of the pandemic that finally made her feel completely comfortable in front of viewers.
After years on screen, that was the moment she realised she did not need to perform a version of herself.
She could simply be Alex.
