Gail Porter

Born on 23rd March 1971 in Edinburgh, Scotland, Gail Porter attended Portobello High School and studied for a BTEC HND in media production at West Herts College. She started her career presenting children’s TV shows for both BBC and CITV, including The Movie Chart Shows, Top of the Pops and Live & Kicking. She moved on to present on such shows as The Big Breakfast and Gail Porter’s Big 90s for VH1.

Gail Ported began posing for magazines including FHM, she also posed for a nude photo which without her knowledge was projected on the Houses of Parliament in 1999 with the message to vote for her in the FHM Sexiest Women Poll. 

In 2001 she took part in the reality TV show Celebrity Blind Man’s Bluff and appeared on Lily Savage’s Blankety Blank. This same year Gail married Toploader guitarist Dan Hipgrave and gave birth to her daughter Honey on 3rd September 2002. In 2003 she appeared on Channel 4’s The Games although an injury forced her to abandon the show.

In 2004 to 2006 Gail presented three series of Dead Famous and in 2009 presented episodes of The Gadget Show, temporarily replacing Suzi Perry. In 2008 to 2011, she was a regular panelist on Channel 5’s The Wright Stuff.

While she was presenting Dead Famous she separated from her husband and started to develop a condition known as Alopecia Totalis but decided not to wear a hat or a wig so that she could raise awareness of the condition, which she did to great affect. Becoming ambassador for the Little Princess trust, a charity which provides wigs to children with hair loss. In 2006 she presented a BBC documentary called Gail Porter Laid Bare which was followed the next year by her autobiography Laid Bare: My Story of Love, Fame and Survival which was published in September 2007.

Over the years Gail has appeared on several TV shows and also appeared at London Fashion Week in September 2014 writing about her experiences in Fashion Plus Magazine. Then in 2015 she appeared on Celebrity Big Brother representing the UK, she was the fourth house mate to be evicted. 

Gail Porter does lots of great work for charity, she is currently vice president of The Children’s Trust, a UK charity for children with brain injuries and contributed to the Comedy Store on 23rd November 2009 in the Laughing Point event which endeavoured to raise money for the youth homelessness charity, Centrepoint.

In 2018 Gail Porter contributed to a Christmas single called Rock With Rudolph in aid of Great Ormond Street Hospital, along side such names as the legendary Lionel Blair, actress Kara Tointon, Anne Hegerty AKA The Governess, Eastenders’ Shona Mcgarty, glamour girl Jess Impiazzi, Coronation Street’s Nicola Thorp and BBC Bargain Hunt’s Philip Serrell.