What ever happened to Gabrielle Richens, aka, 'The Pleasure Machine'?

You might remember model and TV presenter Gabrielle Richens, 44, by her charming nickname: ‘The Pleasure Machine’.

She adopted the delightful pet name after an airline commercial she appeared in where she played a stripper.

A voiceover tells the audience “step inside the pleasure machine” as it pans around to show a bikini-clad Richens spinning around a pole.

Here is a clip from Richens’ days on Survivor, to refresh your memory. Post continues after video.

Turns out, she doesn’t mind the claim to fame. “It just stuck, I Love it; I think it’s great,” she told Muscle and Fitness magazine in 2008.

Richens started modelling in her native Britain at age 15, and moved to Australia when she was 20 because she thought it might be easier to make her mark in a slightly smaller market.

It was during the 1990s that Richens briefly dated Hamish McLaren, an Aussie surfer who called himself an investment trader.

He is at the centre of Australian scrutiny now due to his fraudulent history stealing money off more than a dozen victims. But at the time, he was most definitely a nobody. She was the rising star.

Despite a successful career, it was Richens’ relationship with Australian footballer Soloman Haumono that put her firmly on Australia’s radar.

Haumono was contracted to the Canterbury Bulldogs when he met Richens in a Sydney nightclub. The pair were soon labelled the ‘Posh and Becks’ of Down Under.

After a whirlwind few years of romance, he left Australia for the UK  in 1998 to be with her. But he didn’t tell his family…or his club, putting his career at great jeopardy.

At the time the debate was fierce. Should his contract be terminated? Was he just following his heart?

Richens and Haumono were everywhere, the media couldn’t get enough.

In 2011, 13 years later, Haumono ‘came clean’ on the apparent real reason he went AWOL. He told the Sydney Morning Herald it was all a ploy, set up so he could escape his $400,000 contract with the Bulldogs so he could go on to join the Dragons.

The Daily Telegraph reported in 2015 Haumono did in fact initially follow Richens to the UK.

“When I got there, she was very surprised and obviously didn’t have intentions of continuing our relationship. I was devastated,” he told the publication.

His close friend and fellow footballer Anthony Mundine then concocted the idea of using the story to get the pair of them a new gig.

Meanwhile, Richens was still a hit Down Under. The following year, in 1999, she posed nude for Black+White magazine and also graced the pages of Ralph and Playboy.

She also managed to forge herself a career in TV.

She hosted a few programs in the UK, as well as the short-lived dating show Love Rules in Australia, filling the gaps with stints on reality TV shows Dancing with the Stars and Australian Celebrity Survivor: Vanuatu.

Over the years, Richens has been linked to a string of different men. In 1999, not long after everything that went down with Haumono, she was rumoured to be with Manchester United player Dwight Yorke.

In 2001, she dated Eric Cantona, a French footballer.

The most recent man she has been linked to publicly is Shemar Moore of Criminal Minds fame back in 2006.

They appeared together that year on the People's Choice Awards red carpet.

As far as we know, she is currently single.

Career wise, Richens has dropped off the radar. After her years on reality TV between 2004 and 2006, Richens spent the next few years doing a few spots here and there on TV shows.

She appeared on CSI in 2006, and How I Met Your Mother the same year. Her last known acting credit was for Big Fat Gypsy Gangster in 2011.

In the past eight years, Richens appears to have lived her life out of the limelight.

With no social media to keep up to date, she has slipped into obscurity.

Do you know what Gabrielle Richens is doing now? Let us know in the comments.