Alex Jones has steered the One Show ship for 16 years, interviewing stars ranging from Tom Hanks to George Clooney on weekday evenings – but the presenter has opened up about the “mum guilt” she experiences as a result.

Welsh star Jones, 49, has three children, ranging from age four to nine, and, as a result of her BBC hosting stint, she is unable to be at home for their bedtime.

“Presenting The One Show is my dream job,” she said ahead of the evening series’s 20th anniversary. “I still can’t believe how lucky I am. But something always has to give – I always have mum guilt.”

Jones told The Mirror she has been working to get the balance right with her husband, insurance broker Charlie Thomson, admitting she sometimes feels like she’s got “it all wrong”.

“I’m paddling away furiously under the surface. But then, everyone is. Everyone has worries and commitments and something that makes their life less straightforward. I don’t think we’ve cracked it... but I do try my best.”

Jones, who takes the kids to school in the morning, said her four-year-old daughter often comes to find her in the middle of the night, telling her: “Mama, I haven’t seen you and you haven’t picked me up from school. I won’t see you until tomorrow.”

Addressing whether she’d ever quit The One Show, Jones added: “People might ask, ‘Do you not want to do something else?’ But for me, it’s a live show, I’m so used to it and it fits our rhythm at home. Plus, the guests are always different, so the dynamic of the show is then different.”

Jones has been married to Thompson since 2015.

In 2023, she opened up about her previous relationship with presenter Steve Jones, claiming they broke up when he blocked her from getting an interview with Hollywood star Angelina Jolie.

“Long, long story short, back in the day, I was an entertainment correspondent on Rise, and Angelina Jolie was coming on to be interviewed,” she told Dish podcast with Nick Grimshaw and Angela Hartnett,

She claimed that Steve prevented her from conducting the interview after telling the show’s producers that she was sick when she was actually just out at the shops.

“Normally, they would call in the morning and ask to come and do an interview or a junket,” she said. “I was in London – to be fair, I was staying in his flat when I was working in London – and they rang. It was landline then, and they rang and he said ‘Oh, Al’s not here – she’s not feeling very well; she’s had to go back to Cardiff.’”

However, Alex said she was out shopping in London, adding: “So he did the interview.”

She added that Steve “admitted” what he did on Rise the next day, leading to “a full-blown domestic on Channel 4 live in the morning”. Jones said she had “no hard feelings” as “everything worked out”, and called her ex “a good laugh”.