Background and career
Jonathan Stephen Ross (born 17 November 1960) is an English broadcaster, television personality, comedian, and writer. He has presented television comedy chat shows, including BBC's Friday Night with Jonathan Ross (2001–2010) and ITV's The Jonathan Ross Show (2011–present). For the BBC show, he won three British Academy Television Awards for Best Entertainment Performance. Ross hosted his own radio show on BBC Radio 2 from 1999 to 2010. He served as film critic and presenter of the television programme Film… (1999–2010). Ross began his television career as a TV researcher, before debuting as a presenter for the chat show The Last Resort with Jonathan Ross (1987–1988) on Channel 4. His other television work includes being a panellist on the comedy sports quiz show They Think It's All Over (1999–2005), presenting the British Comedy Awards (1991–2007, 2009–2014), judging on the musical competition The Masked Singer (2020–present) and its spin-off The Masked Dancer (2021–2022), and competing on the reality series The Celebrity Traitors (2025). In 2012, Ross received a Special Recognition award at the National Television Awards. In 2005, Ross was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to broadcasting. In 2008, he wrote a semi-autobiographical work titled Why Do I Say These Things?, detailing some of his life experiences. He has also written his own comic books, Turf and America's Got Powers.
Jonathan Stephen Ross was born on 17 November 1960 in St Pancras, north London and raised in Leytonstone, east London. The son of John and actress Martha Ross, he has four brothers and one sister. He is the younger brother of journalist, television editor, and media personality Paul Ross. Their mother put all of her children forward for roles in television advertisements. Ross first appeared in a television advertisement for the breakfast cereal Kellogg's Rice Krispies in 1970, when he was 10 years old. He also appeared in an ad for the laundry detergent Persil. Ross was educated at the comprehensive schools Norlington School for Boys and Leyton County High School for Boys. He then studied at the Southampton College of Art and took a degree in Modern European History at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES) in London, which today forms part of University College London. Ross began his adult career as a researcher on the Channel 4 show Loose Talk. After leaving this, he worked on various other shows before beginning another research job on Soul Train, which became Solid Soul. It is believed his first appearance on television was as an extra in the 1981 It Ain't Half Hot Mum episode "The Last Roll Call".
Whilst on Solid Soul, he met fellow researcher Alan Marke, and the two devised what would prove to be a breakthrough hit for Ross in 1987, The Last Resort with Jonathan Ross. The two men based their concept on the successful American show Late Night with David Letterman, and formed a new production company called Channel X, to produce a pilot. Ross had not planned to be the show's host, but he presented the show from its debut in January 1987. While the series was initially a co-production with Colin Callender, ownership transferred to Marke and Ross, meaning that the latter retained a great deal of control as well as being presenter. The show was successful for both Ross and for Channel 4, making him one of the major personalities on the channel. A year later, his documentary series The Incredibly Strange Film Show introduced many to the works of cult filmmakers like Sam Raimi and Jackie Chan. Ross and Raimi appeared together in a British television advertisement for Raimi's 1987 film Evil Dead II. In 1990 and 1991, his television documentary series Jonathan Ross Presents for One Week Only profiled and interviewed directors including Alejandro Jodorowsky, David Lynch, Aki Kaurismäki and in 2014, the Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar. In 1989, he co-presented the biennial BBC charity telethon Comic Relief, the same year he launched One Hour with Jonathan Ross a short lived chat show on Channel 4. Its game show segment, "Knock down ginger", introduced comedians such as Vic Reeves, Bob Mortimer, Paul Whitehouse and Charlie Higson to television. In December 1989, Ross appeared on Cilla's Goodbye to the 80s and presented all four members of Queen with the "Top Band of the Eighties" prize in a broadcast for ITV which would turn out to be Freddie Mercury's penultimate public appearance before his death from AIDS in 1991. Ross presented the annual British Comedy Awards each year from 1991 to 2014 with the exception of 2008 following his suspension from the BBC. In 1992 he presented an interview with Madonna about her Erotica album and Sex Book promotion. Ross has appeared in numerous television entertainment programmes on several channels throughout the 1990s and 2000s. He was a regular panellist on the sports quiz They Think It's All Over, and hosted the panel game It's Only TV...But I Like It. Other projects include the BBC joke-quiz Gagtag, the Channel 4 variety show Saturday Zoo, new-acts showcase The Big Big Talent Show, and the ITV programme Fantastic Facts. In 1995, he left Channel X, despite its profitable nature. He was quoted in a 1998 article as stating:
It was to do with a deliberate change in my life, moving away from TV as the core of my existence to focus on my family more. So I had to give up everything to do with Channel X, and I literally got only £1 for my share, which was unbelievable.
In 1995, he presented Mondo Rosso, a programme about old cult films. He took over presenting of the Film programme, the BBC's long-running cinema review series, in 1999 after Barry Norman left the show. Ross himself has made a number of cameo appearances in films, playing himself in the Spice Girls' film Spice World (1997) and voicing the character of Doris in the UK version of Shrek 2 (2004). In 2001 he also played himself in Only Fools and Horses, presenting Goldrush, a fictional television quiz on which the main character, Del, was a contestant. In 2001 he voiced characters in two episodes of the animated comedy series Rex the Runt. He also appeared on the first pilot show for Shooting Stars, acting as a team captain. He was the subject of This Is Your Life in March 2001 when he was surprised by Michael Aspel at the BBC Television Centre.
Ross's first radio work was on BBC Radio 1 in 1987, when he sat in for Janice Long for two weeks. Ross began presenting a Saturday morning show on BBC Radio 2 in July 1999. He has also presented radio shows for Virgin Radio (having previously worked on Richard Branson's earlier venture, Radio Radio), as well as the now-defunct commercial radio network service The Superstation, where his producer was Chris Evans. Ross's show on Radio 2 last aired on 17 July 2010 when his contract at the BBC ended. In August 2014, he returned to Radio 2 as a stand-in presenter on Steve Wright's afternoon show for four days. In March 2015 Jonathan sat in for Steve Wright again from 16 to 27 March 2015. In February 2016 Ross returned to Radio 2 on a regular basis to present the weekly arts show. From 11 January 2018, Anneka Rice took over the arts show.
