Gail Porter - Life and Career

Life and Career

Porter attended Portobello High School. She studied a BTEC HND in Media Production at West Herts College. After making an unsuccessful bid to join the presentation team of the BBC children's show Blue Peter, Porter has tended to present family-friendly television programmes, or ones aimed directly at children. This includes The Movie Chart Show, Top of the Pops, and Live & Kicking, work for CITV, and other programmes such as The Big Breakfast and Gail Porter's Big 90s for VH1.

In the late 1990s she began to pose for photos in men's magazines such as FHM. Probably the best-known product of her many photo sessions is one particular still in which she is seen completely nude from behind. The image became well known due to the events of one night in 1999, when FHM, along with guerrilla marketing company Cunning Communications and projectionist/artist Malcolm Litson and Jason Bridges, beamed an enormous projection of her onto the exterior of the Houses of Parliament, with an accompanying message urging people to vote for Porter in the FHM Top 100 Sexiest Women Poll. In her autobiography, Porter claims that she did not know about the stunt until it was reported in the news the following day.

In 2001, Porter took part in the Reality TV show Celebrity Blind Man's Bluff and in 2003, she was a contestant on Channel 4's The Games, although injury truncated her participation.

Recently she presented three series of Dead Famous and episodes of The Gadget Show, temporarily replacing Suzi Perry.

Since 2008, Porter has been a regular panellist on Channel 5's The Wright Stuff.

In early 2009, Porter's mother died of lung cancer, aged 60.

In 2010 she was a celebrity guest team captain on What Do Kids Know? along with Rufus Hound, Joe Swash and Sara Cox on Watch. In August 2010, Gail launched the Two Way Street campaign on behalf of national solicitors Russell Jones & Walker: an initiative to develop the relationship between HGV drivers and cyclists on the road, keeping them safer. In October 2010, Porter hosted a documentary on Current TV titled Gail Porter on Prostitution which investigated prostitution laws.