Steve Jones admits Justin Bieber story drove him out of LA: ‘I cannot do this’

Steve Jones has revealed that a story he was assigned about pop star Justin Bieber was the “breaking point” that led to him quitting showbiz in Los Angeles. The Welsh TV presenter was the guest star on the latest episode of Lily Allen and Miquita Oliver’s hit podcast, Miss Me? while Oliver was away on holiday. During the conversation, he and Allen compared thoughts on the appeal of LA versus New York, with the pop singer branding LA “vacuous, soulless and horrible” and adding that she was “haunted” by her past behaviour in the city.

Jones, 47, agreed with her verdict but said there was a part of him that would rather be around “fake happy people” than “genuinely miserable people”. He lived in the Californian city between 2011 and 2012 while serving as host of the first series of The X Factor USA, but decided to call it a day after a stint reporting for Entertainment Tonight. “There was a story where I was covering the fact that Justin Bieber had just bought a new mattress,” he recalled, “and I thought, ‘I am probably going to kill myself, I cannot do this.

’” Shortly after, Jones said he asked his then-girlfriend if she would move back with him to the UK: “And here we are, 13 years later, about to celebrate our 10th anniversary next month.” He called meeting his wife, US-born food writer and blogger Phylicia Jackson-Jones, the “one fantastic thing that came out of The X Factor USA ”. “I met her when I was filming, just in a bar in LA.