Book description
Gail Porter burst on to our TV screens in the late 90s presenting
The Movie Chart Show, Alive and Kicking and
Top of the Pops. Bright, sparky and beautiful she soon
attracted an entirely different audience, posing for a number of men's
magazines and rapidly becoming the pin-up of the lad-mag generation.
FHM, in a now famous stunt, even projected her naked form on to
the Houses of Parliament.
But beneath her cheery public façade, Gail was struggling with
anorexia and bi-polar disorder. After nine years of extreme dieting,
she collapsed and through sheer determination forced herself to begin
eating properly again. Having been told she would never be able to
conceive, her new healthier lifestyle led to a much desired pregnancy
by her then husband, Toploader guitarist Dan Hipgrave. But the
intense pressures of juggling motherhood with her career, led to
crippling post-natal depression and precipitated the breakdown of her
marriage. Overwhelmed by single motherhood, one day after dropping her
daughter Honey off at nursery, she took an overdose and her world very
publicly began to unravel.
But Gail's ability to stay afloat as her life crumbled in the public
spotlight made her an icon all over again for a new audience of
ordinary women who recognised her pain. She refused to hide-away as
stress-induced alopecia caused her to loose her hair, famously
appearing at a charity event sporting a startling pink Mohican. Her
stunning features and her unwillingness to wear a wig to hide her bald
head have made her a contemporary icon.
But despite all her troubles, Gail remains upbeat and positive. She
has become a role model for coming through it all as a good mother and
a working woman unbowed. As iconic as Jordan, smart as Billie and as
wild as Kerry, Gail Porter has written her autobiography herself - a
raw, honest account of her own troubled life and the world of
celebrity we now live in.
Gail Porter was born in 1971, just outside Edinburgh. She studied
photography and film at college, beginning her career in television as a
runner. She lives in North London with her cameraman boyfriend James
Lloyd and her four-year-old daughter Honey.
