Gail Porter worries about being homeless again: 'I still have that fear...'
Gail Porter "still has that fear" about being homeless again and has warned fans that it can happen to anyone at "any time" in life.
Gail Porter "still has that fear" about being homeless again.
The 54-year-old star shot to fame as a presenter and model in the 1990s but ended up homeless for six months when work dried up in the years that followed and now that she works with Prince William on his Homewards charity, has warned that such an ordeal can strike anyone at "any time" in life.
Speaking on ITV's 'Good Morning Britain', she said: "I'm very aware of it because it can happen to any of us, any time. I still have that fear that it can just take a bad turn and you haven't got enough savings. It can happen to anyone."
In her years of struggling, Gail once shocked shocked shop staff when she walked in and asked for a job as she reminded fans that being on the television doesn't always equal financial success.
Speaking on ITV's 'Lorraine', she said: "I was just going through a difficult time, I'd lost my hair, work wasn't really coming in, bills were going out. It's just one of those things, it's weird, now that I get to talk about it. It can happen to anybody.
"Magazines, they usually didn't pay us but they'd say 'You're on the tellybox, you'll be on 'Top of the Pops'. Promotional work. You didn't get paid for these things.
"I saved as much as I could and, I've got an amazing daughter who is 22 now, but when my hair fell out and work wasn't really coming in, they said 'Oh come on, you're Gail Porter, you're all right' and I had to say 'No, genuinely'."
When the former 'Celebrity Big Brother' housemate initially teamed up with Prince William on his mission to combat homelessness with his 'We Can End Homelessness' documentary , she admitted that she was "embarrassed" at the time but is keen to raise awareness of the issue.
She said: "I felt a bit like a hidden homeless person. My friends were helping me so I'd stay on a sofa or stay in a spare room, I was a bit too embarrassed to talk about it all. It kind of caught up with me. When I got asked to do this, I thought it was unusual. The postman was buzzing the buzzer, and I wasn't expecting a parcel. And he said 'No, you've got a letter...I think it's a royal letter."
