Bellaire’s Hannah Jones – America’s Next Top Model?

Hannah Jones, who grew up in Bellaire, is a contestant on the hit TV series America’s Next Top Model. Hannah (in middle) is pictured enjoying a night out with her parents, Charlie Jones and Kathryn Jost.

Hannah Jones is a local girl. She went to Condit Elementary, Pershing Middle School, played varsity volleyball at Bellaire High School and graduated from the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts.

Now she handles fire, bees and jaguar cubs in front of the camera in the hopes of becoming America’s “Top Model” – all while looking gorgeous.

Despite having very little experience with modeling, Jones was asked to be a contestant on the current season of America’s Next Top Model, a reality-TV series airing 7 p.m. Wednesdays on The CW Network (Comcast Channel 5 locally). It began airing Feb 23, and the finale will be in May.

(Photo:Chris Frawley/The CW ©2011 The CW Network, LLC. All Rights Reserved)

Jones tried out at the PlazAmericas (formerly Sharpstown) mall in May, going there with her best friend Katelyn Bleiweiss. Good news arrived in mid-September that the Bellaire resident was one of 30 potential future models to be on the 16^th season of the show. On the first show it was narrowed down to the top 14 right away.

Her fearless attitude and desire to win helped her walk down the walkway with fire on her gloved hands and win the coveted Photo of the Week with bees and again with a live jaguar cub.

While her life is over-the-top busy these days, the 5-foot-11 blonde took some time on the phone this week to have a chat with Buzz staff writer, Sharon Brier.

In her animated fashion, she told how she loves funky clothes and big, sparkly jewelry and wishes she had brought more of it on the show. The contestants had a two-suitcase rule and were encouraged to pack high-fashion looks.

At the shoot with photographer Jonathan Mannion, the models pose wearing mud and almost nothing else on America's Next Top Model on The CW Network. (Photo:Chris Frawley/The CW ©2011 The CW Network, LLC. All Rights Reserved)

If she could do the show again, she said, she would step out of the box and follow her own sense of fashion. She would be more outspoken and stand up for herself during conflicts with other girls.

The other models were strangers, but the camaraderie set in quickly. They wore microphones all the time, and the pressure to always engage with each other was tiring.  Many times, Jones said, she just wanted to escape with her iPod for “alone” time.

She said her classes at St. Edwards University in Austin, where she is majoring in photo communication, helped her understand the photographer’s perspective and how to read the light that affected her poses. She said she plans to finish this semester and then devote time to her modeling career.

Her advice for future ANTM wannabees? “You don’t get where you want to go unless you are yourself, and if you are true to yourself you will wear what you want rather than trying to fit in. The world is not generic.”

Results of the TV contest are, of course, top secret. But in the tonight's (April 6) show, models compete for a national print ad, and, apparently, the shoot ends up with an angry confrontation between two models.