Glenda days

Glenda Gilson has no inhibitions about posing provocatively for Hot Press – just don’t ask her to show the pics to her father!

The model turned TV presenter can recall one particular incident when she went to extraordinary lengths to hide a newspaper that contained a risqué image of her.
“Years ago I got body-painted like the Book Of Kells and you could actually see my breasts," she says. "And I went around the house for the full day hiding The Star from him! It was in the kitchen and every time he came over, I’d just grab it and put it behind my back. He was like, ‘Where’s The Star?’ I told my mother not to say anything and she was like, ‘I don’t know! It’s around somewhere.’”
Mind, you that particular snap pales alongside the photoshot for this Hot Press feature.
“These shots are cool,” she smiles, “but I wouldn’t be like, ‘Dad look at these!’ The shoot was very, very risqué.”
In fact, the Hot Press session is the first one Glenda has done since she gave up her modelling career to work as a full-time TV presenter on TV3's Xposé.
“I haven’t being posing in about a year,” she says. “But when something’s done tastefully it can be sexy. It helps when you feel comfortable with the cameraman.”
The last couple of weeks have been bittersweet for TV3’s flagship entertainment show. Lorraine Keane, the main presenter since its inception in 2007, dramatically quit. It couldn’t have happened at a worse time, with the RDS extravaganza, Xpose Live, due to happen within a matter of weeks. Thankfully, viewership figures have remained strong. Glenda reckons that the show’s current success is down, in part at least, to the revamped studio settings.
“We’ve got a virtual set, which looks really fantastic. It’s like E-TV. The two presenters can interact now – whereas before, we had to cut from one to the other. Karen (Koster) is now the main anchor because Lorraine is gone. We always have one of the girls on to do the ‘daily dish’, which is international news, the Hollywood bit of the show (not to be confused with Andrew Sullivan's political blog!). The last few days the viewership has been sky-high. It’s fantastic.”
Xposé has increased in popularity since Glenda joined last year. Initially, she was taken on as a reporter for six months as a substitute for Sybil Mulcahy, who went on maternity leave. Station bosses quickly decided to offer Glenda a full-time role.
Glenda says she was stunned when the news broke about Lorraine’s departure. “Lorraine was the team,” she admits. “It was a big shock to all of us.”
What about speculation that Lorraine was fired?
“No. Not a chance. I spoke to Lorraine and she seemed happy to go, so... it’s her decision. There’s always been speculation. Jesus! When I came in the door there was speculation about me. All I was reading for about a year was: I was fighting with Sybil – that Sybil hated me because I took her job. But Sybil came back into the job. It was nonsense.”
She may love the gig, but Glenda is far from being star-struck when she interviews some of Hollywood’s biggest names. “They all clean their arse like the rest of us!” she laughs.

Glenda set out on the path to fame at the tender age of three, when she appeared in ad campaigns for McDonald’s, Kellogg’s Cornflakes, and Bank of Ireland.
“My mum’s best friend was Geraldine Brand and she owned Brand’s Modelling Agency. She used to ask my mum to send me to castings. I actually did really well when I was younger – I was an awful lot busier than when I got older (laughs)! Any ad you think of I practically did. I won the picture of the year with Alison Doody when I was four. Then, I worked my way up.”
Glenda eased off on the modelling when she as in secondary school, except during the summer. She then took a two-year sabbatical in fifth and sixth year to concentrate on the Leaving Cert. She went on to study TV, radio and print journalism at Ballyfermot College. All the while, Glenda was doing modelling work.
“I was a clotheshorse for years,” she says. “In the end, I started doing well with my modelling. So I went that way and I said, ‘If I want to get into TV, this is the way I’ve got to do it’. I kept my face out there and got my name known. TV was always something I wanted to get into. Always.”
As Glenda’s modelling career took off she started dating one of the world’s biggest rugby stars, Brian O’Driscoll, a relationship the tabloids latched onto. How did she handle the media intrusion?
“Oh, God! I don’t want to even get into this side of things! I was looking for publicity all the time with my job. You’re hoping that all the snappers will turn up at a photocall and take your photograph. When I started going out with a well-known guy, of course, they’re going to snap you – because I was known and he was known. There was a bit of an attraction there for the photographers. That’s what happens, you know?”
How did Glenda react when she witnessed her ex make history, captaining the Irish rugby team to the Grand Slam?
“I was never so happy in my life. The tears were rolling down my face. It was like, ‘What the hell’s wrong with you?’ I had been to the World Cup in Australia and the Lions Tour – even though that was a sad occasion because of Brian’s shoulder. But I had been there for all the great wins. I was at Twickenham when they beat England for the Triple Crown. That was a phenomenal day. It was like, ‘Fuck your chariots out the window now lads!’ It was fantastic. I suppose I was emotional because I was looking at Brian and going: ‘This is what you’ve always wanted. And you’ve got it. And fair play to you’. And I was never so proud of that man in my whole life. And the team of course – the whole lot of them.”
It must have felt strange watching him finally achieve his biggest goal and to be on the outside looking in.
“There’s loads of things like that. He lost a best friend of his – also a best friend of mine – a while ago. I wasn’t with Brian then. Of course, there are always things that remind you of that time that you had or when he stood up and told stories, I was there for every one of those stories. So, things like that hurt. But it would hurt me more if I wasn’t over Brian. I’m very much over Brian. He’s a friend of mine. And I wish him the best with his girlfriend and everything else.”
Did it feel strange seeing her ex get engaged?
“To be honest with you, I knew it was coming. And I thought, ‘Yeah, great’. I knew this day would come and I went, ‘OK, I’ll be able for it’. I wished him well. But the one thing that drove me nuts was everyone saying it to me. Like, ‘Oh, look what you missed out on!’ I was like, ‘Please leave me alone!’ And my mother talking about it! And everyone talking about it. That annoyed me. But I’m sure he still gets stuff about me, you know what I mean?”
The tabloids have been speculating about Glenda’s love life in recent months. She insists that this is nothing new. “They always speculate,” she sighs. “Of course, I’ve had relationships since I broke up with Brian. I think I’m finished with Brian four years now. I learnt an awful lot from that relationship as a result of it being in the limelight. That’s something I probably won’t do again. They (the tabloids) want to know who I’m going out with after Brian. And then Brian started going out with his lovely girl, Amy. So, it’s like, ‘Who’s with Glenda?’ I was always known as ‘Glenda the Girlfriend’. I’m getting older – I’m getting wiser as well. I want to keep out of that. I want to do my job – you know?”
So, would it be possible for her to date someone not in the limelight?
“Absolutely. What do you think I’ve been doing for four years? There you go. That’s why you don’t know about it. So, yeah. That’s what I am doing.”
Does this unwanted attention irk her?
“I’m used to it in a way. In another way you never get used to it. It’s worse for my mum and my dad, to be honest with you. They find it harder to read it – that’s what worries me. I don’t care what’s written. Or I do care but I care more about my mum getting upset and my mum saying to me, ‘We have to read this. We have to answer people on the streets just as much as you do, you know?’ But I’m like, ‘Well, you don’t mind answering them when it’s good things (laughs), so get used to it!’”
In the same spirit, these days Glenda refuses to read any of the garbage posted online about her. “I used to find that I was depressed immensely after reading it,” she admits. “Because there’s just such horrible things there.”
However, nothing written about Glenda could compare to the malicious allegations which were flung around about her uncle, the Fianna Fail TD Liam Lawlor in the aftermath of his death in a car crash in Russia. Suggestions that he was in the company of an ‘escort’ were proven to be completely false: the woman accompanying him in the car was, in fact, a translator. The papers were forced to retract the story and the woman in question was awarded a substantial settlement.
“It was horrible,” Glenda recalls. “Words can’t describe it. I remember my Uncle Liam saying, ‘The direction these newspapers are going in this country is just ridiculous’. By God, would he not like to see what they wrote about him. I actually don’t like to talk about that. His children are like my brothers and sisters – we’re that close. Liam was my godfather and my uncle. He was married to my mam’s sister. But it was just dreadful. Dreadful. And the people know what they did and who did it and will – hopefully – live with that for the rest of their lives. I heard afterwards what the person who wrote the story – or gave the story or whatever – said about Liam, and one day he’ll get his comeuppance from me. I’ll get him one day.”
Coming from a Fianna Fail background, it’s obviously going to be difficult to vote for the most unpopular party in the country during the upcoming European and local elections?
“Well, yeah, absolutely,” she acknowledges. “I canvassed when I was a kid for Liam, but it’s been years since I did that.”