Broody Brian’s Stateside home will be a new start...
SOME days perspective means everything. On Friday morning the TV in my house packed in. The next day I was taking part in a fun quiz hosted by Brian Dowling and Samsung where the prize was a new TV. Fate perhaps?
It had to be. As it transpired — and I won’t go into the sordid details — I lost out in a tie-breaker to a fellow with two TVs. Gutted is not the word.
But after the quiz I got chatting to Brian Dowling himself. The former Big Brother star will be following his choreographer husband Arthur Gourounlian to LA where they will lay down roots.
It has been a tough year for Brian who lost his beloved mum Rosie in February. Brian was very close to his mum and he admits is only coming out of the fog of grief that has enveloped him. When his husband moved to the US for work, Brian felt the time was right to jump ship and go with him.
He has company in close friend Donal Skehan who has already made the move and so Brian has just signed with a new talent agency in Tinseltown and is making his final plans to move over.
‘Arthur has moved to LA so I am going to go over to him shortly and give it a go,’ he told me. ‘Why not? I have just signed with a big agency over there now. They seem to think I have done loads and I’m not going to disagree with them.
ITHINK the time is right. I was always putting things off but with what has happened recently, I just don’t see the point in wasting time or waiting any more. It is time to grab life and live it.’
Brian wed Armenian choreographer Arthur in 2015 at Powerscourt Estate, Co Wicklow after three years of dating. Attendees at the wedding included Tess Daly and Vernon Kay, Louis Walsh, plus TV3 presenter Alan Hughes and his husband Karl Broderick. Brian’s fellow Big Brother housemate Narinder Kaur acted as bridesmaid.
When Arthur moved to LA in April and bought an apartment, Brian was not ready to go over as he was still grieving for his mother. But on Saturday, in the courtyard of Dundrum Town Centre, he did appear to have his mojo back.
Brian is the MC for a promotional tour for Samsung’s 2018 line-up of QLED TVs. The big feature of this range is Ambient Mode, which does away with the traditional TV black screen. Ambient Mode can mimic a pattern on the wall behind the TV to make it appear like the TV blends into the surroundings. So when your TV is off it will look like a part of the wallpaper, a fish tank or your favourite painting.
Brian gave away five of the new televisions to members of the public (and one to my opponent, but the less said about that the better). I was at the event with my entire brood including my eightweek-old son Patrick who Brian couldn’t get enough of.
After the year he has had, he told me he is now ready to take the next step and welcome children in to his life.
‘I am very broody — very,’ he said. ‘I was going to wait but you know what? I have just turned 40 and then my mum died and I just felt like there was no point in waiting. Arthur is Armenian and he is very pro-adoption but I really like the idea of a surrogate.
‘So we will have to have a think but we are just ready. I think it might be easier to have a surrogate in the US than in Ireland. They are more used to it and I believe it might make the process that bit easier for us.’
BRIAN took Arthur’s second name to combine it with his own and now uses it on documents. ‘Children are very important to us,’ said Brian. ‘If we have children, what are they going to be called? So I thought we better have the same surname. I think it’s nice when you’re a couple to have the same name. A doublebarrel sounds nice.’
When they do adopt, Brian admitted he wants to have a daughter and isn’t sure he could take care of a son.
‘I have six sisters so I could look after a little girl, but I’m not sure I could look after a boy,” he said. I might still have to dress him in pink privately, once we’re blessed with a baby either way.’
As I left with my family minus the new TV I felt infinitely better. Three healthy kids trump a flat screen every day of the week, right?
Sure we watch too much of it anyway...