11 Least Influential Countdown: No. 10 — Jonathan Jaxson
November 7, 2009 at 11:19 pm by Bobby Feingold in News
There’s nothing Jaxson won’t do for fame. Unfortunately, fame has remained elusive.
Welcome to CL’s annual catalog of impotence: the 11 Least Influential. You’ll meet folks who tried to achieve an ambitious goal, but fell short; people who’ve devoted themselves to a personal mission in near-total obscurity; and ordinary Joes who can’t get anyone to pay attention to them. Every day until the full issue hits the streets on Nov. 11, we’ll bring you a new story of failure — some noble and heroic, others abject and pathetic.
Subject: Jonathan Jaxson
Failing: Can’t make it to the A-list
Jonathan Jaxson has been angling for fame since the tender age of 15. But even after tabloid television appearances, the launch of a celeb blog and stints as a publicist for fellow D-listers, the Atlanta-based PR rep just can’t get to the next level.
The 26-year-old’s futile attempt at fame began in 1999, when he reconnected with his estranged father on the talk show “Forgive or Forget.” A year later, he came out to his dad on a “teen secrets” episode of the “Sally Jess Raphael Show.” Jaxson allegedly became the head of publicity for the Backstreet Boys the same year, after winning backstage tickets to the boy band’s concert. And from there, the 16-year-old continued to network with celebs.
Relying on the fame-by-association theory, Jaxson ran the now-defunct celebrity gossip blog JJsDirt.com where he trashed his supposedly Hollywood “It” girl friends. In an attempt to score privileged information from the queen of all media, Perez Hilton, Jaxson sent the blogger sexually explicit videos of himself. In return, Hilton filed a federal defamation suit after Jaxson claimed Hilton asked for those videos.
His television career didn’t end after “Sally Jesse.” Jaxson, who has recently used the name Jonathan Shelton, had guest roles on the “Ricki Lake Show,” married a man 20 years his senior on a Bravo reality show, and most recently appeared as a celebrity correspondent on CBS 46’s “Better Mornings.”
His latest grasp for fame stems from his on-again, off-again stretch as a publicist for Real Housewife Kim Zolciak, whose own delusions of stardom seem aligned with Jaxson’s. Called the “world’s worst publicist” by Defamer, his PR website currently lists only two present clients, a cosmetic dentist and a T-shirt website. Past clients include Kim Kardashian, DaBrat and Michael Lohan.
After a decade in Hollywood’s trenches, you’d think Jaxson would give up on fame, but this celebrity-seeker isn’t going anywhere. Jaxson recently moved to Atlanta from Florida, and he hopes to be a big fish in a small celebrity pond. Yet even the most inexperienced at stardom know that cosmetic dentistry isn’t going to get you to the A-list — not even in Atlanta.
(Photo courtesy ProjectQAtlanta.com)
November 16th, 2009 at 8:04 pm
This guy tells lie after lie. I saw him in two places with his “mother”, his check was not accepeted in one place, I overheard the girl at the counter tell him it was declined due to a bad check in the system. Then he was trying to get botox for his “mother” at the spa I was at and he flaunted his….hmmmmm, wealth, but yet he spent no money that I saw, and wasted thier time also. I have been told he does this everywhere. Is this the kind of fame he wants?