STAR Jones showed off her new engagement ring yesterday on “The View” – setting the stage for what will be a very public walk-up to her wedding.
Jones’ boyfriend of several months, Manhattan banker Al Reynolds, popped the question during the fourth quarter of Sunday’s NBA All-Star Game at the Staples Center in Los Angeles – proposing on the huge arena screen in front of 20,000 spectactors and millions of TV viewers and planting a sparkling five-carat diamond on Jones’ finger.
Jones gushed about the event on yesterday’s “View.”
“It was the most amazing thing,” Jones said. “I knew it was going to happen . . . because on Thursday, Al asked my parents for my hand in marriage.
“With every passing day it didn’t happen . . . and I was getting annoyed, you know me, I was trying to control it,” Jones said. “Then at the top of the fourth quarter I saw him bring his coat over, and I knew.”
Jones’ words were likely the first of many discussions among the “View” hosts about Reynolds and the upcoming marriage. “The View” has, after all, built its coffee-klatch reputation on the co-hosts living their lives very publicly.
Jones, in fact, isn’t wasting any time trotting Reynolds out to meet viewers – he’s scheduled to visit today’s show (11 a.m./Ch. 7) to talk about the engagement.
Reynolds is a Wall Street banker and the brother of Ed Reynolds, a former New York Giants and New England Patriots linebacker who now works for the NFL.
He is the son of an Army combat engineer who grew up just outside Martinsville, Va., not far from the North Carolina border, in a town called Horsepasture.
Jones and Al Reynolds flew down to Martinsville last December on a private jet to attend the funeral of Al’s uncle.
Their visit made headlines in the local paper, which noted that “while Al took a nap that afternoon, Jones spent a few hours bonding with his mother – whom she refers to as ‘Miss Ada’ – with talk of love, family and relationships.”
The couple took time out to visit with Jones’ grandparents in Badin, N.C. (Jones was raised in both Badin and Trenton, N.J.)
“I’m happy down here; I’m actually happiest,” Jones told the newspaper. [Martinsville] reminds me of where I’m from.
“It reminds me of home.”
