'Nothing scares me anymore': Gale Porter Photo: iProductions
Even if you don't like to cuddle, you'll want to hug Gail Porter within minutes of meeting her. It's not just because she's been through the mill – mental illness, homelessness, alopecia – but also because she's clearly such a kind soul. Life brought down a bad hand on her, but she goes further and knows how to joke about it.
Porter, now 52, is using the jokes in her first stand-up show at the Edinburgh Fringe next month. “Basically, I'm going to move from childhood to sectioning,” she says cheerfully. Hung, Drawn and Portered will look at the comic side of her experience, such as spending the night in an Alcatraz cell for a ghost-hunting TV show, only to be told that a lustful spirit has appeared but clarified that it isn't. So. I can't imagine her: “I can't even sleep with a dead man!”
This will also be a return home. Porter grew up in Edinburgh and has always loved the festival. “My mom and I went to all these amazing shows and I always said, 'Mom, one day…'
We meet a few hours before Porter's first opening act, 10-minute slot at the Soho Comedy Club, but she still finds time to invite me to her apartment in northwest London, which she shares with a lovely rescue cat named Ziggy Stardust.
It's a modest rental property, with a living room filled with favorites: Star Wars toys, a collection of sneakers, a painting by British artist Stuart Semple that says “There's beauty in everything, but not everyone sees it.”
Porter has lived here for many years and feels part of the community. When she won a Bafta in 2020 for the BBC documentary Being Gail Porter about her experience (“I got a Bafta for being insane!”), she lent it to neighbors. “I took it with me to a local Indian restaurant,” she explains. “I took it to the laundry. Because they have always supported me. I'm like, “Do you want a week? Just take it!” It was all around Willesden Green.”
It may be friendly, but Willesden Green is not one of London's media enclaves. You can expect a former TV presenter to live comfortably. Porter was a household name in the 1990s, moving from children's television to hosting Top of the Pops and being on The Big Breakfast. But she says she has never been rich.
How much did she get for performing Top of the Pops once a week? “I think £500 and then you get 20 percent to your agent, then you have to pay rent,” she replies. “All the magazine covers, none of them ever paid me.”
Porter's most lucrative occupation was voicing advertisements for Sainsbury's. “It was a few hundred pounds a week and you can't complain about that. But other than that, I can't think of a well-paid job.”
Although it was clearly visible. Porter became the pin-up girl next door, and in 1999 FHM magazine did the infamous projection of her nude form onto the Houses of Parliament, a stunt she never knew she had.
On an episode of Never Mind the Buzzcocks, she was pilloried by host Mark Lamarr, who sneered, “If you're not going to show us your ass, there's no reason to be here.” When the cameras stopped rolling, she went home and cried, “It was really awful. Just be kind, it's easy.”
Gale Porter, 1998 Photo: PA
There were a lot of hilarious moments as a host, but behind the scenes she was falling apart. Porter had an eating disorder and self-harmed. She doesn't blame the industry, tracing her mental health issues back to her early years. “It had nothing to do with TV, it had to do with me,” she says. “I used to work at B&Q in a dress that said 'Gale, happy to help', but that wasn't the case. I just wasn't happy in the slightest.”
Then, in the 2000s, she separated from her husband, Toploader guitarist Dan Hipgrave, and lost her hair almost overnight due to alopecia. And the work dried up: “When my hair fell out, the only job I was offered was participating in television programs at breakfast and talking about the fact that I was bald.”
Her mental health problems reached the brink of collapse. One day in 2011, she texted her ex that she was thinking about suicide. The police came and butchered her.
She later became homeless for six months, spending most of that time surfing on the couch and also sleeping soundly on a bench in Hampstead Heath. She now works as an advocate for Homewards, the Prince of Wales' plan to end homelessness, and says she finds the prince “genuinely interested and extremely passionate” about the project.
“People may be critical because William is a member of the royal family, but he is using his platform to make a difference – I will support anyone who can use their influence to try to end homelessness,” she says. “When I met him, he asked a lot of questions about my experience of being away.”
This experience showed how quickly a person can lose a roof over his head. “It's so simple – everything goes on as usual. You're fine, you're fine, you're fine, and then no work,” she says. “You are still paying, but nothing comes.”
Porter still hates to think about that time. “When I was homeless, a lot of people didn't call me. Not everyone was in the know, but if I don’t hear from a friend for three days, I say: “Is everything all right?”. That did not happen”. She immediately adds, “Obviously it was my fault, no one else’s, because I didn’t say anything. Everything is fine. I have a roof over my head.”
In conversation, Porter often does the following: apologizing for herself, trying to make everyone else feel comfortable.
She lost her mother to cancer breasts in 2009 – her father died in 2020 – at a time when, without her knowledge, journalists hacked into her phone. “People were outside the hospital when my mom was dying. They knew where she was thanks to my phone.”
Porter accused people close to her of betrayal, and when she found out the truth: “I didn’t leave the house for about a month, because I felt like that, I was embarrassed and ashamed that I thought they were my friends.”
Her eyes will fill with tears as she babbles, then switch to wisecracks in a double Edinburgh accent. Was it the worst time of her life, I ask at one point, after she recounts the horror of being forced into a van by four police officers and then imprisoned and drugged for three weeks. “Oh no. I was once married,” she retorts, bursting into laughter.
Porter is self-deprecating, but never spares himself. She's been diagnosed with bipolar disorder but doesn't like being labeled. Today she feels “euphoric,” she says, although every day is different. “I don’t even care if I lose everything tomorrow, because I was there, I did it. Because I know I can always try to put it back together again. Nothing scares me anymore.”
Gail Porter meeting the Prince of Wales at Kensington Palace in June 2023. Photo: GettyPorter has no residual attachment to television, which turned its back on her at the first sign of trouble. “Children, stay away from the telly,” she says. “Just don't do it. Get yourself a good job.” What brings her the most happiness is her relationship with her “super smart, super wonderful” daughter Hani, who is a university student and turns 21 in September.
Porter is now at peace with her hair loss. , and can brilliantly complement it with false eyelashes and sequins. She loves to dress up and go to parties where everyone is friendly. A longtime LGBTQ advocate, she is saddened by the lack of kindness in transgender debates: “People have hearts and it takes a lot of effort to stand up for being gay or being different. If you don't like it, just leave.”
Everyone has been so positive since she announced the stand-up show: “I feel like I'm covered in a blanket,” she says. . A few days later, I watch her give her second opening act at The Queer Comedy Club.
She's great in the spotlight, naturally funny, and the room is filled with goodwill. As she leaves the stage, people jump up to hug her.
Hung, Drawn and Portered will take place at the Edinburgh Fringe from 2 to 28 August; edfringe.com
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