UFC heavyweight champion Jon Jones found himself at the center of an unexpected controversy after a young content creator secretly recorded him discussing his hip arthritis using Meta smart glasses.
Jon Jones says he doesn’t want to wrestle Daniel Cormier in RAF because he has ‘severe arthritis’
“I have severe arthritis, and most people don’t know that. My left hip is covered in arthritis… My last training camp, dude I went to bed in so much pain.
I have a 3 year old… pic.twitter.com/NOp7i8xa5U
— Championship Rounds (@ChampRDS) February 4, 2026
At the Celebrity Sweat flag football game at Cal Berkeley’s Memorial Stadium, Jones addressed the incident directly with interviewer The Schmo.
When asked about the leaked information regarding his arthritis, Jones didn’t hold back his feelings about how the situation unfolded.
“The kid that leaked that was an absolute as*hole,” Jones stated. “I was talking to some guys in confidential and he had one of those Meta glasses on like myself and he ended up posting that. That wasn’t for everybody to hear, but that’s how life works.”
Despite his frustration with the breach of privacy, Jones confirmed the authenticity of the leaked information.
“It is true. I do have arthritis and I’ve been an athlete my whole entire life and it’s just something that comes with it,” he explained. “I think I started sports in seventh grade. Now I’m almost 40 years old. So it comes with it, but I do it all over again and I feel great.”
The UFC champion emphasized that his condition wouldn’t prevent him from participating in the charitable event. “You guys will see today. I’m going to get a warm up. I’m going to be running around, having fun, and doing what I do,” Jones declared confidently.
Jones had mentioned experiencing significant pain during his last training camp and expressed concern about preserving his mobility to play with his three-year-old son.
The Jones situation also comes at a time when Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses are raising growing privacy concerns. Recently, reports surfaced that two Harvard students were able to hack Meta’s Ray-Ban glasses and effectively turn them into a makeshift facial recognition system.
The experiment showed that simply looking at someone could allow the glasses to pull up personal details like their name, address, phone number, and online connections within seconds.
Even more unsettling is that this kind of technology doesn’t rely solely on what people willingly share online. Due to years of data breaches and hacked databases, personal information that many assume is private can still be accessed and stitched together.
At the same time, other videos online have shown just how easily the built-in safeguards on these glasses can be bypassed. Some users have demonstrated ways to block or disable the recording indicator LED light, which is the very feature meant to alert people when they’re being filmed. Someone could potentially record conversations without any visible sign, making secret recordings even harder to detect.
