Update, 12/9: This week, January Jones scooped the National Enquirer by posting an email from the publication informing her of its plans “to publish a story which reports January Jones has worried friends with her series of attention-grabbing bikini pictures and social media posts.” They are dumb. Below, a reminder that January’s first-class Instagram content is a wonderful celebration of eccentricity and positivity in an otherwise bleak year.
For seven seasons on Mad Men, we watched January Jones grin and bear it as Betty Draper, plastering on that Coke commercial smile while her philandering husband did God knows what and society as a whole dismissed her as just another pretty face. (“I’m not stupid,” she constantly had to remind us. “I speak Italian!”) Especially in the show’s early seasons, her character — bound by social pressures and the fact that her people are Nordic — would never let anyone see her sweat, instead burying every negative emotion deep inside of her until she’d inevitably explode and take it out on her poor children or some innocent birds.
Perhaps that’s why it’s so refreshing that Jones’s Instagram is decidedly not that. While Betty would rather die than let us see her with a single hair out of place (and even then, she’s got specific instructions for Sally and the mortician on how to style her to ensure that never happens), January Jones has no qualms about getting weird on social media, inviting us into her home to remind us that even the most glamorous actresses are bored and losing their minds in quarantine. Whether she’s making a “human stew” in her bathtub, playing with a Betty Draper Barbie in her closet or hilariously shooting her shot with her “future boyfriend” Kawhi Leonard, she clearly has no interest in the pristine, carefully curated social-media presence we see from so many celebrities.
It’s worth noting that, while she does generally get goofy, Jones has also used her Instagram to raise awareness for some serious, important causes, amplifying Black women’s voices, raising awareness about the increase in domestic violence incidents since quarantine began, speaking out about the death of George Floyd and showing support for the Black Lives Matter movement. But for the purposes of this article, we’re focusing on her more lighthearted posts; here’s just a sample of Jones at her most delightfully weird.
January Does Her Best Risky Business
She traded the tighty whities for a cotton nightgown, but Jones’s slide across her hardwood floor still rivals Tom Cruise’s best. She offers no real explanation for what motivated her to have someone film her doing this — her caption is just a shrug emoji — but in the comments section she tags Lisa Rinna and tells her “this joy was caused by watching [Real Housewives of Beverly Hills]. I had a burst of glee.” Relatable.
January Blesses Us All With a Glamour Shot
It’s hard to remember sometimes that stars like Jones, who have access to an entire team of people whose job it is to make sure they look their best, are human beings too. Here we get a nice reminder that celebrities get shit stuck in their teeth just like the rest of us, sometimes so badly that their horrified kids have to ask if they fell in the dirt. Rather than be embarrassed by it, however, she’s able to laugh at herself and share it with her 1 million followers.
January Performs “Solo Synchronized” Swimming
The Summer Olympics were sadly canceled this year due to COVID-19, but that doesn’t stop January from practicing a little synchronized swimming in her pool. We’re not sure what the judges would say about her form (or whether you can technically call it “synchronized” if you’re doing it by yourself), but her effort is strong and her eye makeup is impeccable.
January Does An Interpretive Dance to the Jurassic Park Theme
“I’m sorry to my family, I know I promised never to dance in public again but I wasn’t sure if this would count,” Jones captions this video, raising questions about what sort of traumatic dance-related incident previously brought shame to her family. We’ll never know, but fortunately for us, January is determined to relieve a little quarantine stress by dancing in her yard to the theme from Jurassic Park. Life finds a way.
January Gives Us a Tour of Her Garden
Just in case you thought maybe her Instagram is performance art, with Jones playing an actress slowly descending into madness while stuck inside her mansion for months at a time, she uses the caption here to remind us that this is not Grey Gardens. Instead, we get a funny tour of her garden that’s repeatedly interrupted by jackhammer noise and off-camera instructions from a child (presumably her son) demanding “more emotion.”
January Learns to Tap Dance
“Our household has been blessed by some good news,” a grinning Jones tells the camera here, “and I just wanted to share it with all of you.” Finally, a positive distraction from our current hellscape! What could this good news possibly be? “I made a purchase the other day after watching Annie to try to do something new that I’ve never done before,” she explains. “They arrived last night, and it turns out I’m a freakin’ natural.” She then backs up to reveal her brand-new tap shoes and launches into a self-taught tap dance. This is not good news; it’s great news.
January Does Some Housework in a Venetian Mask, As One Does
This one’s from early on in quarantine — Jones notes in the caption that she hadn’t left her house in three weeks — but it didn’t take long for all of us to lose our minds this spring. Here we see our heroine doing some sweeping while wearing a kimono and a Venetian mask that she had lying around, just because. She maintains intense eye contact with the camera the entire time, giving us a look that says, “Oh, you don’t do housework like this? Weird.”
And Whatever This Is
I can only assume that the haunting, glowing mask Jones is sporting here is some sort of skincare thing, but to be honest, it doesn’t matter — it’s funnier without context. And yes, that’s a Coors Light she’s drinking with a straw while dancing. Never change, January.
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