Inside Annabel Giles’ marriage to Ultravox singer Midge Ure and how she appeared on I’m a Celebrity before her death
I'M A Celeb star Annabel Giles has died at the age of 64, her family revealed yesterday.
Before her appearance on the show, Annabel worked as a model and a TV presenter - and was married to Scottish rock legend Midge Ure for four years.
She was born in Pontypool, south Wales on May 20, 1959, and was discovered by the Model 1 Agency while working as a secretary at a Mad Men-style advertising firm.
Annabel was the only British model to be contracted to make-up house Max Factor.
The star said she made a fortune by "turning up and sitting still" while make-up pros turned her into "something impossibly gorgeous".
She bought 17 cars including three Porsches, an Aston Martin and a Morris Minor - before she had even passed her driving test.
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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.
Born in suburban Glasgow in 1953, Midge had rocketed to the top of the charts as one of the singers on 1984 Band Aid anthem "Do They Know It's Christmas?"
He joined a line-up of stars including Bob Geldof, Bono, Sting and Phil Collins to record the song, which raised £200million for victims of the Ethiopian famine.
Annabel and Midge married on the Caribbean island of Montserrat in 1985.
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Their daughter Molly was born two years later, and the family lived in a listed Georgian mansion by the Thames in west London.
But the marriage was not to last, with Annabel and Midge separating in 1989 - although they remained good friends.
By this time, Welsh beauty Annabel had tired of modelling.
She forged a new career presenting ITV shows Razzmatazz and Night Network.
Alongside co-star Sarah Greene she was the face of ITV fan favourite Posh Frocks and New Trousers.
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In 1995 Annabel, then 38, had a son named Tedd - whom she raised as a single mum after his father left her two-and-a-half weeks after he was born.
Tedd suffered from a chromosome abnormality, and the challenges of raising him and Molly alone while working in showbiz left Annabel anxious and depressed.
She thought about leaving the limelight altogether and becoming a secretary again.
But Annabel found new success as a novelist after her 2001 book Birthday Girls sold 120,000 copies.
She came up with the idea for the book while feeding Tedd late one night, and wrote it in her garden shed.
Annabel wrote several more novels, and appeared as a panellist on Through the Keyhole and Have I Got News For You.
In 2013 she went into the jungle for the 13th series of I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!
After only two Bushtucker trials, she became the first celebrity to leave the jungle.
Annabel worked as an agony aunt for BBC Radio Wales and as a counsellor and psychotherapist in Brighton and London.
She was diagnosed with a "highly aggressive" brain tumour this July, and died on Wednesday at a hospice in Hove.
Molly and Tedd said that their mother "was truly one of a kind, an enigma to those privileged to share her life".
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They added: "True to her nature, she kept spirits high and maintained her quick wit until the very end.
"Her humour and laughter will leave us inspired to live life to the fullest, just as she always did."
