The glamorous Welsh model who became a mainstay of British TV panel shows: How Annabel Giles who was once married to Ultravox’s Midge Ure appeared on I’m A Celebrity and Have I Got News For You before her death

Annabel Giles led a glamorous life that spanned across the media industry and saw her become a mainstay of many beloved British TV panel shows.  

Born in Pontypool, Wales, Annabel began modelling in her 20s after she was discovered while working as a secretary at an advertising agency.

She was picked up by renowned modelling agency Model 1 and quickly became the only British model to be contracted to a make-up house – Max Factor. 

Writing for the Daily Mail in 2010, she revealed that she once owned 17 cars, including three Porsches, an Aston Martin and a Morris Minor, all before she had even passed her driving test. 

The star was modest about her career and described how she earnt a fortune by ‘turning up and sitting still’ while make up artists and hairdressers fashioned her into ‘something impossibly ­gorgeous’. 

TV presenter and actress Annabel Giles has died after being diagnosed with a brain tumour. Pictured: Annabel Giles appearing on ITV’s Good Morning Britain in August 2022

Annabel began modelling in her 20s and gained prominence presenting ITV shows Razzmatazz and Night Network

In 2013, she appeared on I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here!, arriving of the fifth day alongside Strictly Come Dancing professional dancer Vincent Simone

Jessica Martin, Steve Ovett, Matthew Kelly, Annabel Giles and Jack Tinkler in You Bet in 1992

It was meteroic rise to stardom that caught Annabel off guard, later admitting that she thought her career came about almost by accident. 

READ MORE: Annabel Giles dies aged 64 after battle with brain tumour: Welsh ex-model and TV presenter who starred in I’m A Celebrity passes away following diagnosis with stage 4 Glioblastoma, her heartbroken family reveal

She told The Telegraph in 2003 that ‘nobody was less like a model than me’, adding that at the time she didn’t do any exercise and was sharing a flat with a dustman in Kingston upon Thames. 

In the mid 1980s, when Annabel was 25, she ran off from her husband-to-be the day before their wedding to pursue a relationship with Ultravox singer Midge Ure. 

The couple got married on the Caribbean island of Montserrat in 1985 and two years later they had a daughter named Molly. 

They lived together as a family for six years in a listed Georgian mansion on the River Thames in West London. 

Even after their split in the early 1990s, Annabel said that she and Midge had remained friends. They agreed to share financial responsibility for their daughter, whom she went on to live with in a smaller house in London nearby.

Annabel eventually got bored of her modelling career, which by that time had gained her prominence in the media industry.

She began presenting ITV shows Razzmatazz and Night Network and appeared in 1993 film Riders. 

That was followed by appearances on shows such as Have I Got News for You, Shooting Stars and Noel Edmonds’ House Party, as well on Just a Minute and Loose Ends on BBC Radio 4. 

Annabel found a longstanding role in the TV industry as co-presenter of ITV’s Posh Frocks and New Trousers alongside Sarah Greene. 

Annabel was married in the 1980s to Ultravox singer Midge Ure (pictured together)

 The couple had a daughter named Molly and lived together for six years in a listed Georgian mansion on the River Thames in West London

Lizzie Cundy, Ingrid Tarrant, Nancy Dell’Olio and Annabel Giles, Aggie Mackenzie, Ninia Benjamin, Melinda Messenger and Sian Lloyd in the TV show Our Shirley Valentine Summer

Annabel starred in a series of ITV ‘s I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here in 2013

She entered into the jungle back in 2013 as part of the 13th series of I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here, arriving of the fifth day alongside Strictly Come Dancing professional dancer Vincent Simone

Annabel found a longstanding role in the TV industry as co-presenter of ITV’s Posh Frocks and New Trousers alongside Sarah Greene. Pictured: Annabel in 2003 aged 44

Annabel also featured as a panellist on a number of shows, including Have I Got News For You, Through The Keyhole and Noel’s House Party

In 1995, Annabel wrote and performed a one-woman show at the Edinburgh Festival called Looking for Mr Giles, and did a second show the following year called Anyone Can Be a TV Presenter. 

She began dating an unknown man in the 1990s who she had met as a comedian’s agent before he became her own agent shortly after. 

She previously admitted that they didn’t make a good couple and their relationship was very on and off. 

After one night when the two shared a drink together, Annabel found out she was again pregnant at the age of 38. 

She gave birth to her second child named Tedd, but soon found herself as a single parent again as only two-and-a-half weeks later the father abandoned them. 

Annabel went on to raise Tedd by herself which she struggled with not only because Tedd had been born with a chromosome abnormality called ’47, XYY Syndrome’. 

The condition means that Tedd was born with an extra Y chromosome, which made his behaviour challenging at times, according to the star. 

She previously said: ‘In a nutshell, it means that he would be “extra male”: very tall, emotionally immature and likely to have learning difficulties.’

This was not her first experience of dealing with a chromosome abnormality, as one her two younger sisters, Vicki, suffers from velocardiofacial syndrome, which also causes learning difficulties.

Annabel found the first few years of raising Tedd, while also dealing with her now teenage daughter Molly, to be very difficult. 

But she said that while the job of raising her two children as a single parent left her anxious, depressed and worn out, at the same time it was also ‘the making of’ her. 

Annabel gave birth to her second child named Tedd when she was 38. Pictured: Annabel Giles on ITV’s  Good Morning Britain in 2018

Annabel Giles entering the jungle in the 13th series of  I’m A Celebrity Get Me… Out Of Here

Annabel Giles at the opening night of the musical The Lion King in London in  1999

Annabel Giles and Gordon Burns take part in the game show Cluedo in 1991 

Annabel was a presenter on ITV shows Razzmatazz and Night Network and appeared in the 1993 film Riders. Pictured Annabel in 1995

Annabel with then husband Midge Ure, Bob Geldof and Paula Yates, and a special award for Band Aid at the 1985 Brits

In July 2000 the former model was considering leaving her career of performing behind her, with a job as a secretary lined up at the start of the next year. 

But she wanted to go out with one last ‘creative swansong’, which came one night when she was feeding Tedd and an idea for a novel sparked in her mind. 

She began writing from her office in her shed at the bottom of the garden and after a month she sent the first three chapters of her book to six different agents. 

Again to her surprise, her luck changed. The novel was picked up by Penguin Books  for a six-figure advance.

After a few more months of writing, the book, Birthday Girls, was published in January 2001. 

It sold 120,000 copies in 2001 and reached number six in the Sunday Times Best Seller List of October that year. 

This success spurred Annabel to write more books and she went on to publish Crossing the Paradise Line in 2003 and The Defrosting of Charlotte Small in 2006. 

Then in 2013, after a few years away from the limelight, she appeared on I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here!, arriving of the fifth day alongside Strictly Come Dancing professional dancer Vincent Simone. 

However the glamorous presenter became the first famous face to leave the jungle after she was voted out by the public. 

Annabel returned to TV as she took on a role in ITV reality show Our Shirley Valentine Summer and featured in Rehab The Musical in 2022.

Giles also acted as an agony aunt with BBC Radio Wales earlier this year and was working as a counsellor and psychotherapist in Brighton and London.

In July this year Annabel was told she had developed a stage 4 Glioblastoma, a type of brain tumour.  Following the diagnosis, she went through brain surgery and radiotherapy and became passionate about raising awareness for her condition.

She passed away peacefully yesterday at Martlets Hospice in Hove aged 64, her children, Molly and Tedd, said in a statement today. 

They said their mother ‘will leave us inspired to live life to the fullest’, adding that she ‘kept her spirits high and maintained her quick wit until the very end’. 

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