Celebrity News:

POINTLESS celebrity and D-list non-entity are just some of the crueller insults that Britain's famously cut-throat tabloid press have hurled at Abi Titmuss.

The former nurse, Good Morning roving reporter and ex-girlfriend of John Leslie has had just about every aspect of her private life raked over since she started her career as a celebrity.

But for the woman who has suffered more than most in the backlash against the so-called non-entity celebrities - people who have attained celebrity status for nothing more than being famous - it seems to be water off a duck's back.

While the barbs and jibes might have hurt, Titmuss has never let it show, and has put herself forward to take part in a high-profile discussion about sex on television at this year's Edinburgh International Television Festival.

Stepping into the lions den, Titmuss, 31, will join internet gossip legend Mr Holy Moly, Heat magazine's TV editor Boyd Hilton and producer Adam Bullmore at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre tomorrow for the debate Guilty Pleasures, hosted by former Blue Peter presenter Richard Bacon.

She was originally to have been joined by fellow tabloid celebrity Jade Goody, but with the former Big Brother star pulling out, Titmuss will now be the centre of attention.

Of course, this will not be a situation she is unused to, thanks to her bizarre rise to fame. She first hit the headlines in 2002 as the glamorous girlfriend of Edinburgh-born TV presenter John Leslie when he found himself at the centre of a number of lurid allegations.

Back then her image was that of a caring nurse who proudly stood by her man, but the couple split and it soon became clear she had plans to be a celebrity in her own right.

Her public exposure led to her giving up her nursing job to take up a role as a roving reporter on Richard and Judy's Channel 4 show. But she soon found herself catapulted into an entirely different celebrity status when lurid private sex tapes featuring her, Leslie and another woman found their way into the hands of the media, and inevitably onto the internet.

Rumours quickly spread that Titmuss had taken part in kinky orgies and drug-fuelled parties, and it looked like her media career might have been ended in similar fashion to Leslie's.

Of course, in today's celebrity obsessed culture, a few skeletons in the closet simply means a chance to try something new, and Titmuss was quickly offered the job of presenter on the pornographic channel Television X.

Having realised sex sells there was little to stop Titmuss in her rise to the top, with national tabloids regularly printing kiss-and-tell stories, accompanied by revealing photos of the now glamour model, which kept her name in the public eye.

She also released a risque fitness video, wrote an erotic novel published by Black Lace and penned a regular sex advice column for lads' mag FHM.

Playing up to her new image, she told newspapers "I'm not like those glamour girls who say: 'I'm really dirty, I'm really bad', then just pose around. I really am dirty and bad - I love sex."

TV producer Lucy Crystal, who has organising the Television Festival debate, has a slightly different take on Titmuss.

"Sex and gossip is a growing feature of modern life and we couldn't have a discussion about sex without a sex symbol," she said. "Abi is fun. She is young. She is sexy. She is sweet. She is intriguing."

Whatever she is, there is no doubt she is very well-off, thanks to her willingness to bare all. Her status has seen her do the rounds of the reality TV shows, including ITV1's Celebrity Love Island, Hell's Kitchen and even her own fly-on-the-wall documentary Abi Titmuss: A Modern Day Morality Tale, made for Channel 4.

More recently she joined the cast of Deadline, the Janet Street Porter show which had celebrities trying to run a celebrity magazine.

To further fuel her celebrity status she's had the celebrity lovers, from flings with David Walliams and Patrick McGuinness to a relationship with fellow Celebrity Love Island contestant Lee Sharpe, as well as 'being linked to', as the tabloids put it, dancer Brendan Cole, comedian Russell Brand and rock singer Joe Breakdown.

And with her latest calendar in the works, and a diary of the last three years due out soon, it seems Titmuss has no intention of giving up her place in the public eye just yet.

gedwards@edinburghnews.com

TV Festival: Guilty Pleasures, The Fintry, Level 3, EICC, tomorrow, 5pm

let's talk about sex, baby: Abi Titmuss in Guilty Pleasures

Ross on song

Marcia Brown - The Unsung Diva! Pleasance Dome ***

TAMEKA Empson is extremely convincing in her role as singer Marcia Brown from BBC3's 3 Non Blondes. In fact, she's so convincing it appears some people in the audience don't get that the character isn't real and the hilarious on-stage errors and bum notes are intentional.

Marcia Brown is a legend in her own living room. Despite a long-lived rivalry with Diana Ross, she's never really made it big. That doesn't stop her from telling everyone she has.

Motown fans will recognise Marcia Brown's life as somewhat similar to that of Ms Ross, albeit it with far more comedic licence.

Unsung Diva has an air of Acorn Antiques about it, with missed cues, an over-zealous pianist and a long suffering work experience girl who does nothing but anger the diva. Empson plays the character effortlessly.