Brian Dowling - Media Career

Media Career

Dowling followed his Big Brother success by presenting SMTV Live, becoming the first openly gay children's television presenter. He also presented his own show on ITV, Brian's Boyfriends, as well as narrating the Channel 4 reality show The Salon. He once ate chicken while recording this programme.

In 2002, Brian co-hosted the Elle Style Awards with BBC Radio 1 presenter Jo Whiley. In 2003 he joined Duncan James and Tara Palmer-Tomkinson in presenting the NOW Magazine Style Awards, where he also won the award for Most Stylish UK TV Personality."

Dowling regularly stood in for Liz Bonnin on LivingTV's Celebrity Extra show in 2004. He has also voiced numerous adverts and TV series and has presented the companion show to I'm Famous and Frightened!.

In July 2005, Dowling fronted the Party in the Park concert in Leeds with Coronation Street's Nikki Sanderson. He then went on to front the Irish O2 in the Park concert, in Phoenix Park, Dublin, alongside Fran Cosgrave and Caroline Morahan in August 2005.

Dowling hosted a showbiz slot on Vernon Kay's BBC Radio 1 Saturday morning show from 9 October 2004 to September 2006.

In October 2005, Dowling presented a series of special Christmas features as part of Sky Digital's interactive platform programming, titled Christmas Wrapped Up, in which he reviewed and helped to promote products that were available for purchase in the shopping areas of Sky Digital's Sky Active service.

Dowling was reintroduced as a presenter on ITV in March 2006 when the network launched its ITV Play subsidiary. Along with six others, Dowling was signed up as a presenter of the network's interactive gamble based telephone show The Mint. The game show ran till 2007.

In October 2007, Dowling and his family appeared on All Star Family Fortunes, where they won £4,660 for charity. During the final round "Big Money", Dowling was asked "Name a type of bean.", and after saying, "baked bean", which had already been given, he was asked for another answer, to which he exclaimed "lesbian!". When his answer came up on the board, it was displayed as "Les Bean".

Dowling was a contestant in the ITV reality series Hell's Kitchen during September 2007, in which he competed against other celebrities to impress celebrity chef Marco Pierre White. Dowling finished in third place. Whilst participating, he had numerous clashes with fellow contestant Jim Davidson because of what Dowling interpreted as Davidson's homophobic slurs. Davidson was subsequently asked to leave the show as a contestant due to what ITV described as "unacceptable remarks" against Dowling. Dowling's next job was as the presenter of Backstage at the Big Top, a spin-off show of the second series of Sky1's Cirque de Celebrité.

Following on from this, in August 2008, Dowling was a contestant in the Irish reality television show, Fáilte Towers, where he and 12 other celebrities had to take on the roles of hotel staff. He came second to John Creedon. He then went on to become a contestant on TV3's Celebrity Salon, in which he and several other Irish celebrities (Pippa O'Connor, Leigh Arnold, Virginia Macari, Celia Holman Lee and Breffny Morgan) learn the tools of the beauty trade. Celebrity Salon began airing on Monday 7 June 2010. Tasks included giving facials, waxing, performing cosmetic surgery, hairdressing and styling.

He also appeared in a special episode of Come Dine with Me, alongside three other previous winners of Big Brother and was declared the winner.

Dowling was crowned Ultimate Big Brother housemate on 10 September 2010 at the end of the Ultimate Big Brother series that saw the end of Big Brother's transmission on Channel 4.

Following this he has appeared as co-host alongside Katherine Lynch on the RTE2 series Wagons Den.

On 22 July 2011, after months of speculation, it was officially confirmed that Dowling would become the new presenter of the revived series of Big Brother on Channel 5. He has so far presented three celebrity series in August and September 2011 and January 2012, and two series of the main show in 2011 and 2012.