It’s been a busy 24 hours of news for former UFC heavyweight champion Jon Jones.
Not only did he announce his retirement from MMA and relinquish his belt to Tom Aspinall, he was also criminally charged with misdemeanor leaving the scene of an accident (no great bodily harm or death) in relation to a bizarre incident from February in his hometown of Albuquerque, New Mexico.
According to the Albuquerque Journal, a police officer investigating a traffic crash found an intoxicated half-naked woman in the passenger seat of one of the cars. This woman told the officer that Jon Jones had been driving but had fled the scene on foot. She called Jones on her phone and gave it to the officer. The man who answered “appeared to be heavily intoxicated and made statements implying his capacity to employ lethal force through third parties.”
The woman would tell police in a follow-up interview that she had been at Jones’ home consuming alcohol and magic mushrooms before blacking out and waking up at the scene of the traffic accident. She claims Jones was the last person she remembers driving the car. A police report notes that Jones called the woman 13 times in the hours following the crash and texted her numerous times as well.
Jones’ social media on Saturday evening included a statement on his retirement from the UFC and another thanking fans for all the love and support he’d received following the announcement. Four hours later, around midnight, he commented on the new criminal charges.
“Keep in mind, even the media can get it wrong sometimes if they don’t have all the facts,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “Don’t believe everything you read online.”
He finished the tweet off with a kissy face emoticon.
“Keep in mind, even the media can get it wrong sometimes if they don’t have all the facts. Don’t believe everything you read online.”
— Jonny Meat (@JonnyBones) June 22, 2025
The Albuquerque Journal shared at least part of Jones’ side of the story as well. He claimed in police reports that the woman left his home while intoxicated earlier in the day and then called him following the accident. He claimed the police officer on the phone “immediately opened the conversations with unprofessional language, which led him to doubt the legitimacy of the individual’s claim.”
If all of this sounds familiar, it’s because this latest incident includes multiple elements of past criminal complaints against Jon Jones.
Jones was charged with DUI after smashing his Bentley into a utility pole with two women in the car in 2012. Jones was also involved in a hit-and-run back in 2015 where he crashed into a pregnant woman’s car and fled the scene on foot. Jones was arrested for another DUI in 2020 when police responded to reports of gunfire and found an intoxicated (and armed) Jones offering homeless people solo cups full of liquor.
A heavily intoxicated Jones said he’d fight the ‘nerd’ policemen who arrested in him for assaulting the mother of his children following his UFC Hall of Fame induction ceremony in 2021. And Jones was accused of threatening to have a drug testing employee killed in 2024 because she showed up to his home unannounced to collect samples.
Even Jones’ tweet regarding this latest 2025 ‘leaving the scene’ incident is extremely similar to a denial he wrote after being accused of inappropriately touching and then choking a waitress at a strip club in 2019.
“I’m definitely not in any trouble my friend, don’t be so quick to believe everything you read on the Internet,” he wrote.
Jones has indeed avoided any serious legal repercussions stemming from all of these incidents. We have no reason to believe things will be different this time, no matter what facts end up coming out next.
“I just don’t want to deal with this person,” the waitress told police regarding the 2019 incident. “I think he is a f—ing piece of s—. The whole situation is so complicated and I’m not really sure what to say, and this person gets away with f—ing everything.”
Jones is set to appear in Albuquerque court on Thursday, July 24th for a bond arraignment regarding the latest charge.
