11 Least Influential Countdown: No. 10 — Jonathan Jaxson
Saturday, November 7th, 2009
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.
