Dawn O'Porter has admitted she is “always broke” — despite her successful career and marriage to Irish actor Chris O'Dowd.
The Scottish writer and television presenter, 46, tied the knot with the Bridesmaids star, 45, in 2012.
But despite her success as a journalist, documentary filmmaker and co-founder of the refugee charity Choose Love, Dawn revealed this week she struggles to make ends meet.
She told Kate Thornton’s White Wine Question Time podcast: “'I work pay cheque to pay cheque. I'm always broke. My card got declined last week. I'm like, ‘What the f*** is happening?’”
Dawn returned to London with Chris and their two children — Art, eleven, and Valentine, eight — last summer after eight years in Los Angeles.
She explained: “I've never seen myself as a celebrity. Even though I'm married to Chris, who is quite a well-known actor, I don't think either of us have ever seen ourselves as celebrities.
“I guess if I was a celebrity, I'd get paid lots of money to do things that aren't necessarily my job or don't really feed what I do, but I don't.”
Dawn — who shot to fame on the 2007 BBC show Super Slim Me, for which she slimmed down to a size zero — recalled meeting Chris just as her career was collapsing.
She said: “My TV career had just gone. I was so poor. I was so upset. I had zero confidence. I didn't know what I was going to do.
“I'd just met Chris, and he was on this trajectory up. I thought, well maybe this is just it. I'm just a girlfriend, and that's it.”
As Chris starred in Hollywood blockbusters including 2013’s Thor: The Dark World and 2018’s Mary Poppins Returns, Dawn struggled to find her place in Tinseltown.
I was so poor and upset... I had zero confidence
“We were living in LA and I just said to Chris, I've got to go back to London to try and claw back my career,” she said.
“And we came back to London for a bit and I'd go for these meetings at TV production companies and I'd been successful.”
She was later dropped by Stylist magazine, where she had a regular column, which she described as “the final blow to my confidence”.
But salvation came in the form of a two-book deal with Hot Key Books, the first of which was 2013’s Paper Aeroplanes, a novel inspired by her upbringing in Guernsey.
She added that she is thrilled to be back in the UK capital, saying: “I just feel this city in my bones
“I look at the news and watch America like it's some horrible terrible movie, which will never end. I just don't want to be a part of it right now.”
