Gail Porter reveals she’s lost entire days of sleep after a lifelong struggle with insomnia: ‘I’m so tired I sleep for 48 hours. I wake up when it’s dark’
Gail Porter reveals she’s lost entire days of sleep after a lifelong struggle with insomnia: ‘I’m so tired I sleep for 48 hours. I wake up when it’s dark’
Gail Porter has provided insight into her daily routine as she reveals how she’s struggled with debilitating insomnia since she was a young child.
Revealing her day in life routine The Sunday Times magazinethe star, 52, spoke candidly about her mental health and admitted that her insomnia caused her to lose whole days of sleep.
Gail, who was diagnosed with bipolar in 2011, explained that she had suffered from insomnia since childhood: “I have terrible insomnia – I’m up at 1am, 3am and 5am awake. I’m a worrier. Will I get work after Edinburgh? Have I messaged my friends enough? Will Ziggy like the cat sitter?’
“It’s been going on since I was three or four — nothing works,” she added. ‘Sometimes I’m so tired that I sleep for 48 hours. I wake up when it’s dark and realize I’ve lost a day.’
Insomnia: Gail Porter has provided insight into her daily routine as she reveals how she’s struggled with debilitating insomnia since she was a young child
Gail was also candid about how she deals with anxiety on a daily basis, explaining how she can “embrace my past now because I’ve had a lot of fun.” But I was pretty anxious long before I worked in TV and I always had eating problems.”
Describing her history with anorexia, she said, “I was flying from job to job ‘forgetting to eat’ and things moved quickly. Even if someone had tried to intervene, I wouldn’t have listened. Or I would have agreed and then ignored their advice.’
Gail thanks her daughter Honey, 20, for her support, while also enjoying her new career path in stand-up comedy.
The Scottish TV presenter is currently giving a stand-up career at the Edinburgh Assembly Rooms from August 2-28, as well as shows across the UK.
Her routine tells of how she went from being a children’s TV presenter to posing nude and seeing her naked image beamed to the Houses of Parliament only to be sectioned, diagnosed as bipolar and sleeping rough.
Gail, once named by FHM as one of the world’s sexiest women, said: ‘I’m super excited to come to Edinburgh. I’ll be doing stand-up seven nights a week.
“I don’t know if it’s a midlife thing or whatever, but I was offered it and I thought, why not?
Gail became a household name thanks to regular appearances on The Big Breakfast, The Movie Chart Show, VH1 and Iconic BBC music show Top Of The Pops.
At the time: Gail was also candid about how she deals with anxiety on a daily basis, explaining how she can “embrace my past now because I’ve had a lot of fun.” But I was kind of anxious long before I worked in TV (pictured in 1999)
Close: Gail thanks her daughter Honey, 20, for her support, while also enjoying her new career path in stand-up comedy (pictured with Honey in 2019)
In 1999, her popularity – boosted by modeling at cult magazines FHM and Loaded, among others – led to a nude photograph of Porter being projected onto the Houses of Parliament without her consent as part of a guerrilla marketing campaign.
But the former pin-up insists she made little money during the early years of her mainstream career, citing the amount she received per episode on Top Of The Pops as one of her lowest earners.
She recently told The Telegraph: ‘I think £500, and then you have 20 per cent to your estate agent, then you have to pay your rent.
“All the magazine covers, I never got paid for it.”
Porter weighs in on her biggest payday, saying a voiceover job for a Sainsbury’s commercial brought in a modest income.
“It was a few hundred pounds a week, and you can’t complain about that,” she recalls. ‘But other than that I can’t remember any good paying jobs.