Jonathan Ross' fascinating family from hot shot Hollywood wife to EastEnders mum

Throughout his 33 year career, Jonathan Ross has enjoyed huge success as one of the biggest stars of British television.

But the 60-year-old Masked Singer judge is not the only high flier in his family.

Not only has his wife Jane Goodman carved out a hot shot Hollywood career for herself, but his brother Paul is also a long-time TV presenter while his late mum was an actor in a major soap.

And his daughter Honey Ross, 23, is quickly becoming a star in her own right thanks to her work as a body positivity activist who regularly posts empowering pictures of her body to social media.

Here, the Mirror explores the fascinating family of Jonathan Ross…

Wife Jane Goodman

Jane started out as an entertainment reporter for the Daily Star and also wrote for Cosmopolitan, Just Seventeen, The Times and the Evening Standard among others.

It was while covering a showbiz event as a 16-year-old junior reporter that she first met Jonathan – who is 10 years her senior.

To her annoyance, her recollection of that first meeting remains vague.

“I met Jonathan at some sort of promotional event, she told The Times back in 2012.

“He’d just started his show The Last Resort. He’d only been doing it for two weeks, I think.

“I can’t remember what we talked about. I wish I could. Honey’s always asking me that, but I really can’t remember.

“I think I invited him to some other thing, hoping to see him again. Maybe I was less socially awkward back then.”

They married in 1988 when she was 18 years old and went on to have three children – Betty Kitten, 29; Harvey Kirby, 26, and 23-year-old Honey Kinny.

Ambitious and talented, Jane moved away from journalism to become a Hollywood screenwriter, joining forces with director Matthew Vaughn.

Together they co-wrote screenplays for Kingsman: The Secret Service, X-Men: First Class and X-Men: Days of Future Past.

She was also the brains behind the script for Tim Burton’s Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children and the screenplay for The Woman In Black.

But Jane’s talents don’t stop there. The London-born star has also published several books including the two-volume best-selling series The X-Files Book of the Unexplained in 1997 and her 2000 novel Dreamworld.

Jane and Jonathan initially bonded over their shared love of science fiction, horror films and American pop culture.

And he’s made no secret of his lasting adoration for his one true love.

“Jane’s my ideal, whatever way she is,” he once said.

“We’ve grown up together and I become more passionate about her as the years go by.

“For me, it’s only ever been Jane and it only ever will be.”

Mum Martha Ross

Mother-of-six Martha spent the best part of her career as a regular in BBC soap EastEnders.

From the show’s inception up until 2006 she played a market store holder on Albert Square and also starred in Grange Hill.

Martha sadly died in January 2019 after being diagnosed with cancer, and a devastated Jonathan later opened up about his deep regret for having ‘put off’ visiting her.

Unaware how poorly she was, he told Loose Women: “What’s awful is that I did see her shortly before her death but then…

“Well, she had a form of cancer but we were told that it was liveable with. We assumed she would be around for a lot longer.

“Then in early February she got ill and a phone call went around. We had a family WhatsApp group.

“I feel bad because everyone said, ‘Oh, we will all go and see her’. And I said, ‘Let’s not all go and see her today because then there is no one going to see her tomorrow. Let’s spread it out during the week. Who can only go today?’

“Two of them went there, and then she died that day. That last day that I would have seen her. Although I think she didn’t really know what was going on.”

Activist daughter Honey Ross

Honey has made it her mission to promote body positivity and challenge judgements about body shape and size.

She regular shares powerful images of her body with her 44,000 Instagram followers and hosts her own podcast, The Body Protest.

Growing up, she admitted she loathed her own body and once took aim at her well-meaning parents for pointing her in the direction of diets.

“They saw me, a teenage girl coming home saying, ‘I hate my body’.

“They tried to give me solutions to a problem I brought to them, which was to lose weight. They presented me with diets and diets, as we know, don’t work and are absolutely toxic.

“My advice to parents is keep that as far away from your children as possible, if you want them to have a good relationship with food and their bodies growing up do not shame them.”

But there is no ill-feeling between Honey and her parents, who she explained simply didn’t know how to handle the situation.

She continued: “Recently, my mother said sorry for the way they handled it when I confided how I felt about my body – and how she wished they’d had the tools to offer an alternative.”

* The Masked Singer continues tonight at 7pm on ITV

Who do you think the celebs behind the masks are in this year’s Masked Singer? Share your thoughts in the comments section below…