Car trouble for Ireland's gossip girl

PROFILE GLENDA GILSON:FOR A PERSON who made her career from being in the papers, it's a tough game trying to stay out of them. This week, in an ongoing court case, the model and television presenter Glenda Gilson still faced applications for her imprisonment, along with that of her brother Damien, for allegedly failing to provide financial statements about a car-sales company of which they are directors.

Gilson Motor Company, now wound up, lists Gilson as a director (she owns 1 per cent) alongside her brother. The liquidator in charge of winding up the company, Gary Lennon of Lennon Corporate Recovery, had said he was unhappy with the financial statements that Gilson had filed. Her brother, who handed over his statement of affairs this week, said that the delay in delivering them to the liquidator was caused by a mix-up. The company was wound up having failed to pay Revenue €141,937 in taxes, and Ms Justice Mary Finlay Geoghegan, who is overseeing the case, has said the failure to provide adequate statements is a “serious matter”.

For Gilson, who is a nonexecutive director of the company, this latest foray into the limelight couldn't be farther from the daily glamour of her job as a presenter of TV3's Xposécelebrity news and entertainment programme.

Born on International Women’s Day in 1981, Gilson first stepped into the spotlight aged just three, earning £300 for her first modelling gig, a Bank of Ireland ad, which was followed by one for McDonald’s. By the time she had finished school and a stint in Ballyfermot completing a year-long journalism course, followed by a broadcasting course, Gilson had gone from being a child model to one of the most recognisable faces of Celtic Tiger Ireland. Her modelling career was cemented when she won the European title of Miss Hawaiian Tropic, representing Ireland and England in 2002.

At one stage she was probably the most photographed woman in Ireland; it was difficult to open a newspaper without seeing her beaming smile, bikini’d body and arched right eyebrow heralding a new product, National Something Day or another PR event. Of course, Gilson was just doing her job, but try telling the people who sprang up to post derogatory blog comments and message-board tirades.

Gilson has a thick skin – and, boy, does she need it. Relentlessly mocked online, she unfairly became the touchstone of what some people believed to be an inane and increasingly widespread culture of socialites and C-listers taking up column inches. While the PR companies, photographers and newspapers appeared immune to the flak, the models shouldered the abuse. As she became synonymous with the blinkered glossiness of Celtic Tiger Ireland, her profile steadily grew as her four-year relationship with Brian O’Driscoll, then a rising rugby star, developed.

At the time O’Driscoll was sporting bleached blond hair and was no stranger to Dublin nightlife. Many pointed the finger at Gilson for leading him into a different sort of limelight off the pitch, although their so-called hectic social life was greatly exaggerated, with Gilson remarking at the time that they were more likely to be sitting in on the couch, eating Eddie Rockets, than swinging from the rafters in Lillie’s Bordello.

Nevertheless, the publicity around their relationship was unremitting. Here was a man who would become the country’s sporting hero, arm in arm with a beautiful model. No story about their relationship seemed too frivolous – or indeed too imaginary – to prevent publication. Their social outings were tailed by Ireland’s budding paparazzi. The phrase “Ireland’s Posh and Becks” was tossed around more often and more agilely than Bod could throw a ball.

But the trappings of fame can also bring unwelcome attention. In 2006, Daniel Rooney from Castleknock pleaded guilty to harassing Gilson and her family.

When the high-profile relationship between Gilson and O’Driscoll ended, in 2006, and Gilson scored her biggest gig to date, as the presenter of Glenda’s Showbiz Gossip on the music channel Bubble Hits, the Castleknock woman had probably learned a lesson or two about keeping her private life private when she began dating the property developer Johnny Ronan of Treasury Holdings. But sometimes it’s hard to keep things quiet.

Although their relationship was well known behind the frayed velvet rope of Dublin’s social scene, they were rarely spotted together, and the wider public, if they cared, became aware of the coupling only as the relationship disintegrated. But in 2009, when Ronan issued a rather bizarre press release stating that their relationship was finished, it merely added fuel to what was until then a fairly dim fire.

Gossipy stories about “the Rumble in Ranelagh”, involving an argument outside McSorley’s pub, began to emerge. Newspapers were told that Ronan had taken back a present of a Range Rover that he had given to Gilson.

Various other titbits fed to tabloids by so-called friends included a story about Ronan fetching up in Marrakesh early last year after an evening at the Ritz-Carlton Powerscourt, in Co Wicklow, with Gilson’s friend Rosanna Davison, the former Miss World. The soap opera of their relationship, dubbed Glen-Ro, delighted the gossip pages.

But in many ways such tittle-tattle is at odds with much of Gilson’s existence. A homebird, she lives in Castleknock, where her parents Noel and Aileen live and where she also owns a house. She was also very close to Liam Lawlor, her late uncle, and fondly recalls spending time at his and his wife Hazel’s home in Lucan, where the Gilsons would often stay for Christmas.

Gilson has never hid her ambitions, and she has worked for her successes. Her career trajectory so far has been one of a grafter. She has made few enemies in either the modelling or media industries. She is respected as an industrious, approachable and sensible media professional. And when Xposé took Gilson on, in 2008, she would eventually more or less replace Lorraine Keane as the face of the programme, in a hard-working gig that sees presenters multitask as interviewers, reporters and editors.

Three years on, her work with TV3 has seen her outgrow the bowl-of-fruit-as-hat-on-St- Stephen’s-Green style of modelling. Her arched right eyebrow no longer punctuates the almost-daily photocalls that were lampooned by the blog Blogorrah during the boom years. Luckily for Gilson, she is neither overly sensitive nor reckless. She’ll probably be hoping that her latest court appearance will be her last.

But for someone whose name and face were once as ubiquitous on Dublin’s social scene as bad champagne, it’s darn difficult to pick and choose what parts of one’s life get written about. Given that she reports on the antics of celebrities for a living, it’s a double-edged sword with a sharpness she knows only too well.

Luckily for Gilson, she is neither overly sensitive nor reckless. She’ll likely be hoping her latest court appearance will be her last

Curriculum vitae

Who is she?Irish model turned TV presenter.

Why is she in the news?Gilson is facing an application for her imprisonment after her alleged failure to provide adequate financial statements about her directorship of a now defunct car-sales company.

Most appealing characteristicsHard-working, approachable and fun.

Least appealing characteristicsFor many she typifies the much-maligned commercial "Irish model".

Most likely to say"Have you got the new Louboutins in yet?"

Least likely to say"Don't you know who I am?"