Liz Jones facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Liz Jones
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Jones in 2014
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| Born |
Elizabeth Ann Jones
5 September 1958 Chelmsford, England
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| Nationality | British |
| Alma mater | London College of Printing |
| Occupation | Writer, journalist |
| Years active | 1981–present |
| Spouse(s) |
Nirpal Singh Dhaliwal
(m. 2002; div. 2007) |
Elizabeth Ann Jones (born 5 September 1958) is a British journalist.
She began her career as a fashion journalist, but her work has broadened into confessional writing. Jones divides opinion. While she has gained positive responses, a "beautifully natural writer, as well as a funny one" according to Deborah Ross in The Independent, some of her articles have been fiercely criticised.
A former editor of Marie Claire, she has been on the staff of The Sunday Times and the Evening Standard. As of 2019[update] Jones writes columns for the Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday.
Contents
Early life
Jones is the youngest child of an Army father and a former ballerina. By her own account in The Mail on Sunday and Mail website, she grew up in the village of Rettendon, near Chelmsford in Essex, and had six siblings, She attended Brentwood County High School for Girls. Jones says she has been vegetarian since the age of twelve.
According to Jones, "I was six when I first realised how hideous I looked", and she has been an anorexic since the age of about 11. By the age of 17 she wished to look like model Janice Dickinson. Discovering Vogue magazine in Southend Public Library in August 1977, was a revelation for her. It "wasn’t just a magazine to me, its cover was a mirror: how I wanted to look, dress and be". Jones studied journalism at the London College of Printing.
Early career
After leaving college, she began to work for Company in 1981, initially as a sub-editor, eventually becoming a staff writer before leaving to go freelance in 1986. In 1989, she began an 11-year stint at The Sunday Times Magazine, becoming deputy editor of their "Style" magazine in 1998.
In April 1999, Jones was appointed editor of the UK edition of Marie Claire. An announcement by Jones during June 2000 that the leading fashion magazines were setting up a self-regulatory body concerning the size of models was "contradicted" by the editors of rival magazines. Faced by a declining circulation, she was sacked from this post two years later for refusing to use bulimic models and (according to Jones) listing in the magazine the freebies she had been offered in the previous month. She has continued to write about the fashion industry. In July 2013, Decca Aitkenhead wrote that "no one deconstructs its futile, psychologically destructive false promises more forensically than Jones – and in a mass market tabloid at that".
Confessional writing and marriage
During her period at Marie Claire, Jones began to write about her life, and met the journalist Nirpal Singh Dhaliwal, who had been sent by BBC Radio in 2000 to interview her. Jones embarked on a seven-year relationship with him, and they married in 2002; after a "disastrous" marriage, it ended in 2007.
In an article for The Telegraph in July 2021, Dhaliwal wrote of their marriage ceremony as "an occasion I felt swindled into, having never proposed. She arranged it without my knowledge; I found out when I discovered a receipt for the country estate. Confronted with it, she declared she’d already told the world in her column – which I no longer read – and would look a fool. She then broke down in tears, robbing me of my anger as I comforted her and agreed." Dhaliwal and Jones disputed aspects of their relationship in the press while they were still together.
Later career
After four years as Life & Style editor at the London Evening Standard from 2002, she left to join the Daily Mail as Style editor in early 2006 at twice her previous salary. She also writes for British Airways' High Life magazine on destinations and hotels.
Other activities
At the beginning of January 2014, Jones became a contestant in Celebrity Big Brother 13 on Channel 5 TV with comedian Jim Davidson, rapper Dappy, boxer Evander Holyfield, among others. She was evicted from the house on 22 January 2014 after receiving the fewest votes to remain.
Her first novel, 8½ Stone, was published in 2020.
Personal life
Jones says she has been vegetarian since the age of eleven. She was married to journalist Nirpal Singh Dhaliwal between 2002 and 2007. Jones was declared bankrupt in May 2017.
