In the world of celebrity PR, the cutthroat publicist has become something of a trope. There was Tom Cruise's guardian, Pat Kingsley, who boycotted publications that wronged her. The 1970s power publicist Bobby Zarem's own secretary accused him of throwing telephones and typewriters at her. And the fashion publicist Kelly Cutrone famously told underlings, "If you have to cry, go outside," while filming her Bravo show, "Kell on Earth."
And then there's Stephanie Jones. Though not quite a household name, the founder and CEO of Jonesworks has drawn a powerful clientele over the years including Tom Brady, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Venus Williams and Jeff Bezos. (She's also acted as the de facto publicist for Bezos' fiancée, Lauren Sánchez.) A petite blond, Jones gives off a frenetic energy, joking to her employees about how she barely sleeps and lives off "coffee, Adderall, and a dream," one former midlevel employee said.
"She's not the typical New York, LA slick publicist," said the TV personality and talk-show host Donny Deutsch, a longtime client and friend. "I think that's a selling point."
But despite her honeyed Southern twang, which becomes more pronounced the more passionate she gets, the 49-year-old can quickly turn combative, multiple people said. Former staff recalled in-office dressings-down that got so loud that Jones would ask her assistant to turn up the music to cover up the yelling. She FaceTimed one employee who had called out sick and accused her of lying (turns out Jones was right). Threats to journalists were not uncommon; piss off Jones and she'd cut off all access to her biggest clients. Even her clients' own teams weren't spared: She once emailed an A-lister's business partner that he was "sloppy" and sent him a clown emoji.
Recently, instead of just managing her clients' images, Jones has become the story. In May, Puck reported that both Sánchez and Johnson had dropped Jones as their publicist, with the journalist Matthew Belloni referring to Jones as an "erratic screamer."
On May 8, a website called "Stephanie Jones Leaks" and an accompanying X account created by an anonymous user appeared, alleging that Jones engaged in unethical behavior. The X account racked up 900 followers in two days, some of whom were Jones' industry peers, before being suspended. The website was soon taken down after the X account was suspended, only for a new one — and a Facebook page, a Reddit account, and even a Pinterest page, to appear soon after.
A representative for Jonesworks said they believed the anonymous poster was a disgruntled ex-employee. "If the former employee who created this fiction had put this much effort and 'creative storytelling' into his or her work here, he or she probably wouldn't have been fired," the representative said.
Regardless, the pages took the Hollywood media scene by storm. "Everyone is buzzing about that website," one entertainment reporter told Business Insider when it first went up. Whenever there was an update, he said, at least 10 publicists texted him: "Oh my god, it's back up" or "Have you seen the latest tweet?"
"I've never seen anything like it," he added.
In reporting this story, Business Insider tried to find out why Jones was such a polarizing figure. Nearly every person interviewed — whether Jones' former employees or fellow publicists — would do so only under the condition of anonymity, many because they were utterly frightened of her. One person was suspicious that Jones had hired people to pose as reporters to find out who would talk negatively about her. When the incendiary website popped up, there was an internal debate about whether to even contact the creator. After everything people had said, for a moment the thought materialized: Could this be Jones trying to entrap BI?
To a certain extent, this no-holds-barred approach has worked for Jones. She's amassed a powerful client list. But while some may see her more aggressive tactics as her simply being a good publicist, for others, it's too much. "It almost seems like a throwback to the entertainment agencies of the '80s," one leading industry recruiter said. "Just a very kind of wrought environment that's not healthy."
Jones declined multiple requests for an on-the-record interview for this story, instead sending an emailed statement via her representative. "We at Jonesworks are passionate about our work for our clients, and we fight for them every single day," Jones wrote. "That is a big part of what makes us the best at what we do. That passion can sometimes make you a target, but I'm beyond proud of my firm, my employees and the work we do every day championing the causes of our clients."
Jones grew up in Arkansas, emerging on the New York City scene in 2001. She started out doing data management at Deutsch's advertising firm before shifting to a public-relations role at his company.
After 10 years working for Deutsch, Jones broke out on her own. Some of Jonesworks' earliest clients included the sleep-aid supplement drink Dream Water, the jewelry designer Kendra Scott, and the media entrepreneur Randi Zuckerberg. Over the years, she's built Jonesworks into a 42-person entertainment PR agency with offices in NYC and Los Angeles. A number of her biggest clients — including Brady, Johnson, and Deutsch — overlapped with those of her husband, Jason Hodes, a partner at the talent agency WME.
Jones' early clients respected her hustle. Vincent Porpiglia, Dream Water's cofounder and former chief operating officer, said that within the first year of hiring Jones, she landed him and his cofounder on the cover of Entrepreneur magazine. "She's a very intense person in the best possible way," Porpiglia told BI. "She gets into a room and gets everyone's attention, which is important as a publicist."
Adam Schoenberg, the founder and former CEO of the luxury menswear brand Hook & Albert, said Jones was integral to his company's growth, particularly thanks to her willingness to "cross-pollinate relationships with clients." She landed him his first celebrity collaboration: a bow-tie collection with her client Alton Brown, the Food Network host. She also invited Schoenberg over to Deutsch's home to discuss Hook & Albert, and introduced Schoenberg to her husband to discuss potential partnerships with his WME clients.
As Jones' business grew, she attracted more high-profile clients. In 2012, Jones landed The Rock and the music mogul Scooter Braun. By 2018, she'd gotten Brady. In the fall of 2021, Jones hired several new team members to manage Bezos and other corporate clients like the Airbnb cofounder Joe Gebbia. The next year, Observer named Jonesworks one of the country's top 50 PR agencies in America.
For many, working at Jonesworks seemed glamorous: a roster of celebrity clients, a swanky, 15th-floor Manhattan office with a Moët & Chandon Champagne vending machine and an LED sign saying "Buy the rumor, sell the news." Jones held impromptu happy hours in the office and sometimes surprised employees with gifts like Christian Louboutin shoes, Celine crossbody bags, and even Hermès Birkins, which retail for upward of $10,000. She seemed to be close with her rich and famous clients, affectionately referring to Johnson as "DJ" and interrupting one interview with a potential hire to take a call from the Amazon founder. "She was like, 'Oh, hold on, Jeff's calling me,'" a former Jonesworks executive said.
Alexandra Pastore, a former account executive at Jonesworks, said the agency was growing quickly when she worked there in 2018 and 2019, which meant "everyone was wearing a lot of hats."
Jones fought particularly hard to score wins for her star client, Tom Brady.
In October 2022, Jones dropped everything in the middle of Jonesworks' office Halloween party to help draft Brady's divorce announcement, two former employees said. Two days later, Brady and Gisele Bündchen announced on Instagram that their divorce was finalized.
(The Jonesworks representative said Jones stepped out of the party to speak with a different client.)
But while one day might be Birkins and bubbly, the next day could be chaos, former employees said.
In early December 2023, Jones got her team kicked out of a popular Brooklyn bar, the Royal Palms Shuffleboard Club, during the firm's annual holiday party, the former Jonesworks executive and the bar's DJ said.
It all started when Jones approached the DJ between 10 and 11 p.m. and asked her to play "1, 2 Step" by Ciara, who is married to one of Jones' clients, the NFL quarterback Russell Wilson.
The DJ told Jones she would try to get to the song later. But Jones started berating her and recording video of her, the DJ and former executive recalled.
"Steph took out her phone and was like: 'Oh you're racist? You're racist because you won't play Ciara?'" the former Jonesworks executive said. "The DJ was calm, cool, and collected." The former executive added that the DJ had been playing songs by other Black artists like Beyoncé, Drake, and Lil Wayne throughout the night.
The DJ, who is a woman of color, said she had never experienced such treatment in her career.
"It was very triggering," the DJ said. "I was telling her to leave me alone and she wouldn't." Shortly after the incident, the bar's manager asked Jones and her employees to leave. But the experience stuck with the DJ. So much so that when BI first reached out to her via Instagram, she thought it was a setup.
"I wouldn't put it past her if she hired you to try to get my number just so she can harass me even more," the DJ wrote back at the time.
(The Jonesworks representative denied that the team was kicked out of the bar. The representative said that the DJ did not play the songs they requested and that Jones told the DJ she should treat customers better.)
One former staffer said a constant state of fear permeated the New York office. She and another former employee said that on multiple occasions, Jones asked an underling to make the Sonos music louder in the office so people couldn't hear her screaming at employees through her glass-walled office. "But everyone knew what was happening," the former staffer said.
"I don't think there was one day in the office that someone wasn't crying," another former employee said. "I cried in the bathroom every single day."
In February, several current and former employees of the publicity firm received a text message urging the recipients to "band together" to sue Jones. "Contact a lawyer like Gloria Allred or a large employer protection law firm. And stay quiet," it read. The message was signed off by "a concerned friend of the agency / and former or current employer" who is "ready 4 a reckoning."
"That was just a crazy text to get," said a former employee who received it and had no idea who the sender was.
The recipient started side chats with others on the chain. "We're like: 'Can we do something? Should we do something?' But no one wants to because everyone's afraid. People who got out wanted to stay out. That's kind of how I felt too. I escaped, right?"
Some said Jones could be a tyrannical boss. She was known to unexpectedly FaceTime employees, multiple people said. A former account executive who left Jonesworks several years ago recalled taking a sick day to attend a job interview. Jones texted her to ask how she was feeling, to which she responded that she'd been sleeping and was feeling a bit better, she said. Jones then FaceTimed her with no warning. The account executive ignored the call, but Jones texted her demanding she call her back immediately. She took off the makeup she'd been wearing and returned Jones' FaceTime. Jones looked at her and said, "You have mascara on. You're lying to me.'" The account executive gave her two weeks' notice shortly thereafter.
One recent employee said Jones FaceTimed him while he was at a funeral; he suspected she didn't believe he was actually attending one. (The Jonesworks representative said Jones never FaceTimed the employee. "Steph would never pry into a personal matter like that. Period," the representative added.) "It was like a never-ending fear of what was going to be in your inbox, what kind of voice note she'd send you," the recent employee said, adding, "There are so many people that I was kind of in the trenches with, almost waiting to see who could get out first." He quit Jonesworks after less than a year.
PR agencies are known to have high employee turnover, particularly at the junior level. But the turnover at Jonesworks was striking, with many employees getting fired or quitting in under a year, several former employees said. Within 15 months of Jones expanding her corporate-communications team, six of the staffers on the Bezos account had quit or been let go. (The Jonesworks representative said the senior leadership on the Bezos account never changed.) And in the past three years, at least nine employees at the director or executive levels have left Jonesworks after a year or less.
"This was not normal," for the industry, the former staffer said. "It was a constantly revolving door." Jonesworks didn't hire an HR person until January of this year — 13 years after the company was founded, multiple former employees said. The Jonesworks representative said the firm's turnover rates were "fully in line with other business in our space in a post-COVID world." The representative added that since 2019, the firm's head count had grown by 56% and revenue had grown by 74%.
When employees did leave, Jones did not always let them go easily. Two former employees who were at Jonesworks in the past two years received threatening legal letters, which were viewed by BI, warning them not to disparage Jonesworks or share confidential client information after they quit (the employees had signed NDAs upon hiring). One of the women said her letter demanded that she sign the missive. The employee's lawyer told her to ignore it, advising: "This is a bully letter. They're bullying you."
The Joneswork representative said the firm sent legal letters to former employees who were breaking their confidentiality agreements, adding that this was standard industry practice for a company representing high-profile clients and brands.
The X attacks and anti-Jones accounts appeared in the midst of some major clients' departures. In addition to Johnson and Sánchez, Jeff Bezos, Julianne Hough, the country singer Lainey Wilson, and Chris Hemsworth (Jonesworks did the actor's social media but not his general PR) have all parted ways with Jones in the past year or so, former employees said, as well as the brands Wheels Up, Ocean Spray and Partake Foods.
"What any public relations professional understands is that each client relationship is different," the Jonesworks representative said, adding that some clients are long-term while others are signed for only a specific time period.
Johnson dropped Jones in April 2023 after ongoing tension between Jones and his team, including an executive at his production company, four former Jonesworks employees said. His exit was a significant loss as Jonesworks not only did his personal PR but also represented his production company, Seven Bucks Productions, and did work for his tequila brand, Teremana.
After Johnson left, Jones tried to downplay his exit to her employees, according to the former Jonesworks executive.
"People will ask, 'What happened with The Rock?'" the former executive said. "She said to them: 'Oh, you know, he's just having internal changes. We're best friends. We still talk every day. He's dying to come back and work with me but they're just doing internal things.'"
Jones' biggest remaining celebrity client is Brady, though according to three former Jonesworks employees, tensions have also flared on the Brady account. Jones "tries to overstep the people that are in his business," one of the former employees said. "She tries to take over every aspect of it, as if she's his agent or something."
Three former staffers said Jones told her employees and potential clients that Jonesworks managed Brady's social media. In a Jonesworks pitch deck from earlier this year, a version of which was viewed by BI, it says "Jonesworks was brought on to handle strategic communications, manage Tom's brand partnerships and social media, and work closely with his owned businesses and partners." This included, per the deck, strategizing and executing posts on Brady's Instagram account. But the former staffers said that Jonesworks didn't have logins to many of his social-media accounts, including Instagram. Shadow Lion, a creative agency cofounded by Brady's longtime manager, oversaw Brady's social-media strategy, they said. Shadow Lion declined to comment; however, its website says it has directed Brady's social channels since 2014.
The Jonesworks representative denied any tensions on the Brady account. They added that Jonesworks launched Brady on Twitter and TikTok and "is proud to work for Tom Brady hand in glove with Shadow Lion."
Over the years, being a fighter has become part of Jones' brand: the sweet Southern gal who will go to war for her clients. But for some staffers (and recipients), Jones has pushed the limits on what is acceptable.
In a tense email exchange in 2023 viewed by BI, one of Carmelo Anthony's business partners, Stuart Goldfarb, defended himself against Jones, who accused him of doing things last minute. At the end of his note, he told Jones not to call him "sweetheart."
In response, Jones told Goldfarb he was "sloppy," accused him of manipulating the email chain by deleting specific exchanges, and sent him a clown emoji. She signed off the email with "Thanks sweetheart."
"Every time you'd think I'd get numb to it or something, but my mouth would just drop because I'm like, how can you talk to your client's staff like this and not think that it's going to get back to them?" said the former executive.
(In a statement to BI, Anthony's business partner, Stuart Goldfarb, said he loved working with Jones. "We communicate with each other openly, without many restrictions – as if we were family," he wrote.)
One early Jonesworks client said she switched publicists after a short stint with Jones. Not only were Jones' fees were "exceptionally high" at around $10,000 a month, but the client couldn't handle the drama of working with Jones, she said. "She's effective, but she's a nightmare."
"She's yelling at me, she yelled at the people who worked for me, she would yell at my husband," the former client said. "I felt like I was being abused by my PR person."
The client said she was young and didn't know that wasn't how all publicists behaved. "But also the world has changed," she said. "That behavior is less tolerated."
In March 2023, the Puck entertainment journalist Matthew Belloni experienced the Stephanie Jones treatment firsthand after publishing a story about a film Lauren Sánchez had secretly produced in the summer of 2022. He reported that the crew members were disgruntled that Sánchez was staying in a "relatively lavish" trailer while others dealt with "sweltering" conditions and "inedible" craft services and that several key crew members quit after Sánchez decided the film needed "a new twist" a quarter of the way through filming. Belloni said Jones declined to comment before the story was published. "I thought I treated her with respect like I do with most PR people when they treat me with respect," he said.
But the next day, Belloni was shocked to see a Page Six story that cited "a source who knows Sánchez" calling the Puck report "sexist." Belloni said he believed the story came from Jones. "This was her lashing out at me because of coverage unfavorable to her client," he told BI.
The Jonesworks representative said it's part of Jones' job to defend her clients. "Reporters give as good as they get," the representative said. "She's also Southern and loud and she tells every employee this when she interviews them and every client when she meets them."
But in today's "cancel culture," some people feel publicists need to watch their reputations as much as their clients'.
"I came up in the industry under some of the toughest, most notorious publicists in the industry, where they wore that reputation like a badge of honor," said someone who has worked at Jonesworks in a senior position. "I don't think that that flies anymore."
