Nationality British Name Leilani Dowding Ethnicity English-Filipina Role Model | Occupation Glamour model Siblings Melanie Dowding Years active 1998–present | |
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Born 30 January 1980 (age 44) ( 1980-01-30 ) Bournemouth, Dorset, England Alma mater Royal Holloway, University of London Relatives Chris Dowding (father)Zena Dowding (mother)Melanie Dowding (sister) Movies and TV shows Celebrity Wrestling, Perfect 10: Model Boxing, Celebrity Fear Factor UK Parents Zena Dowding, Chris Dowding Education University of London, Royal Holloway, University of London, St Peter's Catholic Comprehensive School Similar Tanya Bardsley, Chelsea White, Cherry Dee Profiles | ||
Rohan meets leilani dowding
Leilani Dowding (born 30 January 1980) is an English former Page 3 girl, glamour model, television celebrity, and the UK representative at Miss Universe 1998.
Contents
- Rohan meets leilani dowding
- 2 minutes with leilani dowding
- Early life
- Career
- Personal life
- Criticism
- References
2 minutes with leilani dowding
Early life
Dowding grew up in Bournemouth, and has a younger sister Melanie. They were brought up Roman Catholic by their Filipina mother Zena, and British father Chris. Leilani was named for her mother's cousin and her name literally means "heavenly flower".
Dowding and her sister attended St Peter's School in Bournemouth. She did well in school, earning eleven GCSEs and three A-levels. She studied for an economics degree at Royal Holloway, University of London, in Surrey, with the intention of becoming a city trader. The then-18-year-old entered and won the 1998 Miss Great Britain competition. In Hawaii later that year she became the first woman of Asian descent to represent Britain in the Miss Universe pageant.
Career
After her success in beauty pageants, Dowding dropped out of university to pursue a full-time modelling career. Although she had not originally considered topless modelling, she started appearing as a Page 3 girl in The Sun in 1999. Her younger sister Melanie ("Mel") Dowding also had a brief career as a model.
In 2003 she was rated #89 on the FHM Sexiest Women in World list.
Dowding has been a guest on various British television shows, modelling on the Big Breakfast and This Morning, and appearing on Faking It Celebrity Wrestling and Celebrity Fear Factor. She has also enjoyed a season in pantomime as Tiger Lilly in Peter Pan.
Dowding appeared on a charity Page 3 episode of The Weakest Link where she lost out in the final round to Jakki Degg. Dowding was competing on behalf of the RSPCA and breast cancer charities. She joked before the show: "I look forward to using my brain for the first time in three years."
Dowding has competed in celebrity poker tournaments and done promotional work for Ladbrokes.
She also appears in the American TV Reality Show Tough Love Miami, in which she deals with her own superficiality in order to find a suitable mate.
She has traveled to Bosnia, Kosovo. Iraq and Cyprus on morale-boosting trips for British troops abroad.
She appeared in the December 2011 issue of Maxim U.S.
She featured on The Millionaire Matchmaker (Series 8 Episode 10).
Dowding has her own clothing line, the Leiluna Collection.
Personal life
Dowding has been engaged to former Wimbledon and Northern Ireland defender Mark Williams and was engaged to former Middlesbrough attacker Jérémie Aliadière. She was briefly married to restaurateur Richard Palmer – ex-husband of Raquel Welch, and is now divorced.
Criticism
In 2014, Dowding uploaded a photo of herself dressed as a murdered Native American chief. This was considered extremely offensive by Indian Country Today News.