Overcomer

J-Hon

By La'Trish Mack

​I had an amazing experience catching up with Jessica Honesty, creator of the J-Hon talk show. The talk show is fairly new and already reaches 250,000 viewers on television. It airs thirty times a month and can be seen on Channel 10 in Fairfax, Virginia with future plans of the show branching out to the areas of Los Angeles and New York. The show is also available to view on Jessicahonesty.com.  Honesty has accomplished a lot in the short time frame it has taken her to develop a fresh, new, talk show, however her journey through the field of entertainment has not always been smooth. 
 
Honesty’s first passion was basketball, but this passion came to a halt her senior year of high school and this would set her life on an entirely different track. “I have screws in my feet. I have two screws per foot and after the surgery senior year, I did a maneuver, came down on a person’s foot and broke my metatarsal bone,” said Honesty.
 
After the injury, a lot of colleges thought that Honesty would be a liability; therefore, they withdrew their offers. She verbally committed to George Mason to play basketball but no longer heard back from the coach. “It kind of sucked in a way, because it is a business and at the end of the day if you’re going to sign on that dotted line for however many thousands of dollars then they need to make sure that their product is going to be able to perform,” said Honesty.
 
East Carolina University was the only school that would give Honesty a chance after she recovered from her broken foot. “As far as me wanting to do the television thing, it kind of fell into my lap,” said Honesty. Originally, Honesty wanted to do web page designing but her advisor convinced her to try mass communications instead. It didn’t take Honesty long to fall in love with the field of communications, but there would be another roadblock along the way that would set her back in her new found career.
 
Honesty was interning for a news station in New Bern, North Carolina when her dreams of becoming a news anchor in the world of communications came tumbling down, at the age of 22-years-old. “The news director told me that I didn’t have a face for television, I would never make it on tv and maybe I could be thrown somewhere into the producer realm,” said Honesty. These words discouraged Honesty and made her feel like she would never be able to accomplish her dream.
 
Today Honesty wishes she would not have listened to the news producer and she discussed how important it is to not allow someone else to speak negativity over your life. “There will always be someone who feels less than that will try to discourage you. Don’t let them. Stay humble, stay prayed up. Get a vision board; write stuff down. Change and align your mindset to whatever you want to do,” said Honesty.
 
After being discouraged and holding out from pursuing her passion, Honesty decided to get back into gear and pursue her dream of being a news anchor. She’s now 30-years-old, but she’s better than ever and her confidence is as high as her talk show ratings. “It’s always important to practice your craft, regardless of what people say, you have to have tough skin,” said Honesty.
 
Deciding to pursue a career in the media industry wasn’t easy for Honesty, because she didn’t have the experience that many news stations look at. “If they don’t give you the experience, create your own,” said Honesty. This is exactly what Honesty has done by creating her very own talk show. “It just took off. I’m more shocked and overwhelmed at the response to it and how people are following it, so I thank God everyday for it,” she said.
 
Life is not a fairytale; therefore, you will come across people who will try to discourage you from reaching your dreams. When that happens you must remember you hold the power and the keys to your destiny.
 
I hope this is a blessing to someone.
 
Love Trish

Watch The New episode (The Halloween Edition) of The J-Hon show Below​!

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