The peтιтion did not fade after the first angry weekend. It climbed. Aaron Howlett, a 50-year-old superfan from Kingston upon Hull who says he has followed Jones for four decades, opened a Change.org campaign to put Sir Tom back on The Voice UK. By 21 September it was past 59,000. BBC Wales later reported more than 63,000 signatures from around the world. Other counts put it past 65,000. Howlett’s argument was simple: Jones’s presence was part of the show’s chemistry, and taking the chair away deprived new singers of a coach of that stature.

On 15 September will.i.am, Jones’s fellow coach since the British series began, collaborated on a Change.org Instagram post sharing the peтιтion, pushing it in front of a following measured in the millions. Howlett told BBC Radio Wales Breakfast he had been unsure anyone would follow, then called the response overwhelming, and described Jones as one of the last living legends. ITV’s public line stayed where it was: graтιтude for nine years and countless moments, no full-time chair on series 15, talks continuing. Jones did not answer with a demand or a refusal. On 19 September, beside a clip of himself singing It’s Not Unusual on the current series, he wrote that so many heartfelt messages, comments and even peтιтions of support had not gone unnoticed, and that it had been lovely to receive them. Thank you. He named the campaign by acknowledging the peтιтions.

He did not say he was coming back, and he did not say the chair was closed. The quietness is the point. A row of that size usually produces either a victory lap or a bitter second statement. He posted the song that made him, thanked the names, and left the decision sitting where ITV had left it. Fans filled the gap. Comments called the exit a crime, called him the original, and asked how a show called The Voice could let that voice go. The graтιтude did not move the line-up. Cheryl and Aitch were already being announced as new coaches. Kelly Rowland and will.i.am were staying. The peтιтion kept the argument alive after the press cycle should have moved on, and his reply kept it alive without turning it into a fight. What 60,000 people received was not a reinstatement. It was proof he had read them.

The 2026 exit is not the first time a broadcaster took the chair and called it change. In August 2015, ahead of the fifth BBC series, Jones wrote that he had put the time in his schedule in good faith, as he had for the previous four years, and that he was told the day before the announcement, with no consultation, that he would not be returning. He said he admired creative change, having lived through plenty of it, but that being informed was a matter of duty and respect. He called the executives’ behaviour sub-standard, wished the show well, and told fans he was shocked. The BBC said the line-up decision had been taken late, that his team was told before the press so it would not leak, that no role had been promised, and that he had not been axed: his contract had ended with series four and was not renewed. Boy George and Paloma Faith came in. Rita Ora went out with him. A Radio Times poll of readers found about 83 percent wanted him kept. He was off series 5.

Source: New York Post