Alex Jones has finally opened up about the wildest chapter of her early TV life — one she admits most viewers have no idea ever happened. The One Show host revealed she once starred on the racy late-90s dating series Prickly Heat, where, as she put it, everyone was “having sex with everybody” during filming in chaotic, sun-soaked Magaluf.
The now-48-year-old presenter joined the Sky show back in 1998 while studying theatre, film and television at Aberystwyth University. She recalled how Davina McCall and Julian Clary hosted the mayhem, saying the format threw around 40 young contestants aged 19 to 23 into a party resort where anything could — and did — happen.
Alex revealed on Jamie Laing’s Great Company podcast that she even begged her university to let her sit her end-of-year finals abroad to avoid missing filming. Against the odds, they agreed — and in the most surreal twist of her career, Davina McCall ended up invigilating her exam in Magaluf. Alex recalled telling her lecturers, “Please let me go and do this,” before the papers were flown out.
The chaos didn’t stop there. The day before her exam, one contestant reportedly grabbed her revision notes and threw them into the ocean. Alex said she somehow managed to push through, helped by a touching gesture from Davina, who later sent personal handwritten cards to each contestant — a keepsake Alex still treasures.
Often viewed as the early blueprint for Love Island, Prickly Heat placed contestants in a villa-style holiday environment packed with messy challenges, flirtations and drama.
After the show, Alex went on to become one of British TV’s most recognisable faces, presenting The One Show since 2010.
In the same interview, she addressed the show’s more recent controversy involving her former co-presenter Jermaine Jenas. She admitted she was “the last to know” about the inappropriate messages he sent to female BBC staff — a scandal that cost him both his job and his 13-year marriage. Alex said she admired the women who spoke up, calling it “an incredibly brave thing to do”.
