Main content

Gail Porter: Nine things we learned when she spoke to Louis Theroux

In the ninth episode of Grounded with Louis Theroux, Louis talks to TV presenter and mental health campaigner Gail Porter, who made her name on hit shows such as Live & Kicking, The Big Breakfast and Top of The Pops. They discuss the lad culture of the 1990s, coping with the media spotlight, losing her hair while filming a series, and mental health ups and downs. Here are nine things we learned…

Listen to Grounded with Louis Theroux: Gail Porter

Louis and Gail

1. Gail may have had Covid-19 at the start of the lockdown

Sadly, Gail’s dad died suddenly in February, and after travelling to Spain to collect his ashes she became ill. She says, “When I got back, [I] could not stop sleeping, was coughing, a dry cough… And I was sweating, freezing cold, I couldn’t smell or taste anything.” Gail says she couldn’t get a Covid-19 test and went through the illness alone at home with just her cat for company. “I didn’t want to worry people,” Gail says. But she started to panic a little: “A couple of nights were a bit scary.”

2. Gail didn’t know her naked photo was going to be projected onto Parliament in 1999

The magazine FHM beamed a naked picture from a photoshoot Gail had done with them onto the Houses of Parliament as a publicity stunt. At the time, Gail had been working as a children’s TV presenter and she says she wasn’t told it was going to happen. “I heard about it on the news… At the time, obviously I was thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m young, I’ve done something a bit daft, I didn’t realise they were going to manipulate me in that way.’ And now I’m nearly 50, I’m like, ‘Check me out on the building that nobody else’s bum’s been on’.”

"I couldn't even get laid by a ghost!" – Gail Porter

A clip from Grounded with Louis Theroux

3. Keith Flint from The Prodigy was the love of her life

The late Keith Flint
Keith was the love of my life, I absolutely loved him, I miss him.
Gail Porter

“I absolutely loved him, and I miss him,” Gail says of Keith, the band’s famous frontman who sadly died in 2019. They had a relationship in the late-1990s after being set up on a blind date by a mutual friend. “We went out and we did not stop laughing the entire evening, and then practically that was us together for almost two years,” Gail recalls. “The good thing was he didn’t really talk about work; I didn’t really talk about work. We would just go and do fun things.”

4. Her entire life has been like a “rollercoaster”

Gail tells Louis she’s very emotional, and that ups and downs have been part of her life since she was young. “I’d have my great times and then suddenly I’d think I’m useless at everything.” Gail remembers getting very upset as a child when she was asked to choose between two bridesmaid dresses. She recalls: “I was distraught for a week. I just cried… And I remember having nightmares about it, and I was only five or six. So, I think my brain’s just wired a wee bit differently.”

5. Gail found the recent documentary she made too hard to watch

“I’ve still not seen the whole documentary because I can’t bring myself to watch it after my dad’s passed away,” Gail tells Louis. The deeply personal programme, Being Gail Porter, explores mental health, and includes a conversation with her dad before he died. Gail is open about her mental health, including past experiences of anorexia, self-harm and depression. She says that now “nine times out of ten I’m totally fine, and then I’ll have my bad days.” The documentary condenses some of her toughest times during six months of filming into an hour, she says. “I mean, it’s great for people to watch to say, ‘Oh, actually I’ve felt those things.’”

6. The worst thing about having her phone hacked was not trusting her friends

Gail Porter presenting Top of The Pops in 2000

Gail says her phone was hacked by a tabloid newspaper, but at the time she had no idea. So, when personal stories appeared in the media, “I was just looking at all my friends going, ‘It’s one of you’… And I felt so guilty about that.” She says TV celebrities should be entitled to their privacy. “You sign up for being entertaining, and being fun, and being humorous or doing whatever you’re doing. You don’t sign up for, ‘Yeah, that gives you access to my entire private life.’”

7. When she lost her hair, Gail says her mum blamed it on ghosts

Gail’s hair started to fall out when she was filming a show about ghosts in the USA. She tells Louis that her mum had warned her not to do it before she left, and “when I came back, she went, ‘You see, don’t mess with the dark side: they took your hair!’” Gail has done a documentary for the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ looking into possible causes of her alopecia but says no one seemed to know why it had happened and she decided not to pursue treatment. “I’m more than happy with the way that I am, and if people stare then that’s fine.”

8. Gail was sectioned for 28 days, but then allowed to go home sooner

Gail explains how her boyfriend at the time had called the police because he was worried about her mental health. “There was a doctor that saw me and said, ‘You’re obviously in a bad place,’” Gail recalls. “So, they took me in and gave me regulation pyjamas, took everything of my possessions... and that was it.” But after being in a psychiatric hospital for just over two weeks, she says she was told, “Look, you can get your stuff together. We’re really sorry, you shouldn’t have been here.”

9. Gail thinks people are becoming more open about mental health

Before the lockdown, people used to stop her to chat about their experiences, and she says she gets messages on social media too. “I feel that more people think… it’s completely normal for people to not feel great, and you’re not on your own,” she says. “There’s so many people that probably are sitting out there thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s just me’... So, I think the more we talk, I do think it’s getting better.”

More from Radio 4