TV presenter Gail Porter on turning her hardships into a comedy show
WORDS: JENNY COCKLE . PHOTOS: SHUTTERSTOCK, GETTY
In the late 90s, Scottish TV presenter Gail Porter’s career was going from strength to strength. She was hosting shows like Top of the Pops and bagging huge modelling contracts, but by the mid-2000s she’d lost most of her work and then her home.
Gail’s life took a turn after she hit the headlines when her naked image was projected onto the Houses of Parliament by lads’ mag FHM without her permission. The first she knew about it was seeing herself on the BBC News and her mother calling up to say, ‘What have you done now?’ Describing the incident as ‘upsetting’, Gail admits that it knocked her confidence. Then, in 2005 she developed alopecia and after losing all her hair, she lost her work and eventually, her home. ‘I couldn’t pay the bills, I couldn’t get any work because I was bald. It was just one thing after another,’ Gail, 52, tells Woman. The star, who has a 20-year-old daughter, Honey, from her marriage to Toploader guitarist Dan Hipgrave, added, ‘I couldn’t even contact anybody because I was so skint I couldn’t pay my phone bill. I ended up sitting on a bench on Hampstead Heath thinking, “I’ve got no idea what to do.”’
That was eight years ago, but Gail has since managed to pick herself up from rock bottom. She became an ambassador for the Samaritans and made a documentary, Being Gail Porter, which won her a Scottish BAFTA in 2020. Although Gail credits her friends for helping her get back on track, she says only a few people knew of her predicament as she was ashamed to admit the truth at the time.
‘Three or four people knew what was going on and helped me by putting me up. But I don’t think even they knew how bad it was because I was a bit like, “Oh it’ll be fine,” plus, they had families and partners so it was getting a bit embarrassing. With kids around, you don’t really want them asking why Gail is in the spare room with a plastic bag. I would stay at certain places and then go back outside. If I managed to get someone to lend me £20 I’d get a really cheap B&B. It was quite a disconcerting time as I couldn’t contact anybody.’
Helping others
Sadly, with the current cost of living crisis, charities predict that many more people could find themselves becoming homeless. In a bid to help, Gail is supporting a campaign with Virgin Media O2 to assist people who find themselves homeless to get access to free data. She explains, ‘If I’d had some data, maybe I wouldn’t have been homeless for six months, I would have bee
