Sir Tom thanks fans after Voice UK departure

ITV stepped him down as a full-time coach for series 15 over insurance issues; he was not thrilled by a reduced role, and more than 59,000 people signed in support.

Sir Tom Jones has thanked fans for the messages and petitions of support following his departure from The Voice UK's coaching panel, and has set out how the decision was made.

In posts on social media between 19 and 22 September, the Welsh singer said ITV had decided to remove him as a full-time coach for series 15, citing insurance issues. The broadcaster offered him a reduced role, which he said he was "not thrilled" about. He stressed that he did not want to leave and that he loves the show.

By 21 September more than 59,000 people had signed a petition in his support. ITV confirmed that Jones would no longer be a full-time coach, while saying that talks were continuing about possible involvement of another kind.

The story ran from announcements in early September to his responses this week, turning a change on the coaching panel into a wider argument about the place of a long-serving voice on a major entertainment programme.

Six decades on the same instrument

Jones, 86, is Sir Thomas Jones Woodward. His career began with a string of top 10 hits in the 1960s, and he has toured regularly ever since, including appearances in Las Vegas from 1967 to 2011. The voice that carried those years is a full-throated, robust baritone — built for the single, the residency and the late-career album alike.

The early run still anchors the catalogue: Along Came Jones in 1965, A-Tom-ic Jones and From the Heart in 1966, and the live Ed Sullivan performances from the same period, including It's Not Unusual and Thunderball. In more recent years the releases have kept coming. Hide & Seek (The Lost Collection) appeared in 2020; Surrounded By Time was issued in The Hourglass Edition in 2021 and as an album in 2023. Between the first hits and those later records sits a working life that never really stopped: tours, residencies and the steady return to the studio.

That continuity is the frame for the television role. Coaching on The Voice UK was not a novelty turn for Jones. It was another platform for the same craft that put him on the charts in the mid-1960s and has kept him on the road into his eighties. Fans who signed the petition have treated the full-time seat as part of that public presence, not as a disposable extra.

The tour goes on

While the coaching question remains only partly settled, the live schedule does not.

ITV's line is clear on one point and open on another: he is not a full-time coach for series 15, yet conversations about further involvement have not been closed. Jones has said he loves the show and did not choose to walk away. The petition, already above 59,000 by 21 September, is the audience reply in plain numbers.

What those talks yield, if anything, is not yet known. For a singer whose first albums landed in 1965 and who is still fulfilling tour dates at 86, the immediate facts are simpler. He has thanked the people who spoke up. He has refused to present the exit as his own idea. And the next date on the North American run is already on the calendar.