Alex Jones shares bikini-clad past on raunchy dating show, aided by Davina McCall during filming breaks.

Alex Jones has confessed she appeared on raunchy Magaluf dating show Prickly Heat where ‘everyone was having sex’.

The One Show host, 48, appeared on Sky series which aired in 1998 and was hosted by Davina McCall and Julian Clary, while she was studying theatre, film and television at Aberystwyth University aged 21.

And in an unlikely turn of events, after the shows raunchy challenges and a wild booze cruise, host Davina helped her sit her exams after agreeing to be the invigilator. 

Alex told Jamie Laing on his Great Company podcast that after begging the university to send her exam papers aboard, she had to squeeze her studies in between filming.

‘I had been a contestant on this dating game show, which was filmed in Magaluf, Davina was the host with Julian Clary’, she said.

‘It was called Prickly Heat. Something like 40 people between the ages of say 19 and 23 in Magaluf, everybody was having sex with everybody, and it was just really good fun. 

Jamie asked: ‘Does Davina remember?’ To which she replied: ‘Oh my god completely. I did my finals for my degree in Magaluf.

‘The university was like, ”absolutely not, you’re not doing your finals in Magaluf”, and I was like ”please let me go and do this”, so they flew my papers out and Davina was the invigilator’

Alex endured some drama the day before her exam, as one of the contestants allegedly picked up her revision and is believed to have thrown it into the sea.

During the podcast, Alex also revealed that Davina had sent all the contestants a little card afterwards with a personal message, something which she still has today.

Often described as a precursor to shows like Love Island, Prickly Heat involved contestants staying in a villa in a holiday resort setting and participating in various challenges.

Since her first appearance on reality TV, Alex has become a household name in the entertainment industry. She is now best known for hosting The One Show since 2010, when she took over from Christine Lampard. 

Elsewhere in the interview Alex has reflected on her co-host Jermaine Jenas’ sexting scandal as she admitted she was ‘the last to know’.

Alex  and Jermaine, 42, worked together on the popular evening magazine show from 2020 until his departure in 2024.

Jermaine was taken off the show after being fired by the BBC for sending inappropriate messages to female employees during his time at the corporation. 

The sexting scandal also cost Jermaine his 13-year marriage after his wife Ellie, the mother of three of his four children, announced the pair were divorcing earlier in March.

She said: ‘JJ and I had become good friends. I was the last to know. The BBC dealt with it, and I think if people feel uncomfortable, they have to deal with it.’

The presenter continued: ‘If it was my daughter, and she was at work in whatever industry and she felt uncomfortable, I would hope to God that I’d given her the tools to be able to speak up.

‘If she was brave enough to speak up, because it is a brave thing to do, I would hope that the company, corporation, whoever, would deal with it. 

‘Lots of journalists are asked, ‘Have you ever had experiences that are uncomfortable? 

‘I mean, if you go back to the 90s, early 2000s, there was stuff and there were ways that things were said that weren’t great. 

‘But, nothing has stuck with me, Nothing makes me shudder. And I know the type of girl I was then, and I wouldn’t have handled it.’

‘It’s one of those things that you’d be worried that if your job were on the line, you wouldn’t have said anything,’ Jamie replied. 

Alex confirmed: ‘Yeah, I know I wouldn’t have said anything, and so I’ve got a lot of respect for the girls that did, because I do think it is an incredibly brave thing to do.’