Background
Dowding grew up in Bournemouth, and has a younger sister Melanie. Leilani was named for her mother"s cousin and her name literally means "heavenly flower".
Dowding grew up in Bournemouth, and has a younger sister Melanie. Leilani was named for her mother"s cousin and her name literally means "heavenly flower".
Dowding and her sister attended Street Peter"s School in Bournemouth. She studied for an economics degree at Royal Holloway, University of London, in Surrey, with the intention of becoming a city trader.
She did well in school, earning eleven GCSEs and three A-levels. In Hawaii later that year she became the first woman of Asian descent to represent Britain in the Mission Universe pageant. 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 lieutenant 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 television Reality Show Tough Love Miami, in which she deals with her own superficiality in order to find a suitable mate.
She has travelled to Bosnia, Kosovo.
Iraq and Cyprus on morale-boosting trips for British troops abroad. She appeared in the December 2011 edition of United States Maxim
Dowding has her own clothing line, the Leiluna Collection.