Vogue Williams talks taming Spencer Matthews after divorce and heartbreak — and opens up about suffering anxiety before The Jump
“I’ve never met them, but we message each other all the time,” she says. “Their babies are the same age as Theodore, so it’s nice to hear what they’re going through. We need those mum chats.”
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A loud snort comes from the other side of the room. Vogue’s social-media-sceptic husband Spencer Matthews, who is also home as we chat at their seriously impressive south-west London apartment, isn’t convinced.
“It’s just barmy!” he scoffs.
“Look, I’ve just started doing CrossFit and one of their selling points is that you meet like-minded people and it’s a community. Are you joking? I don’t give a f**k about the community! I’m not here to make pals! I’m here to train. I find social media just as bizarre.”
“Well, I’ve found it really positive,” says Vogue, rolling her eyes.
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“But anyone in the world can just send you a message,” says Spencer, incredulous. “Like, if I wanna message P Diddy and tell him I think his name’s s**t, I can! That’s weird.”
Vogue: “I just think it’s different for me. I’ve found quite a few people I really like. They’re randomers, but we have a connection.”
Spencer: “They’re probably, like, 60-year-old dudes. That’s who you’re talking to.”
Vogue: “Whatever. Stop hijacking my interview.”
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Welcome to life chez Spencer and Vogue (Spogue?) and a snapshot anyone who watched their recent E4 reality series will instantly recognise.
It’s a relationship characterised by playful bickering and mickey-taking, with exuberant Spencer often playing the fool to Vogue’s straight man, bounding about like a small child on a sugar rush and giving every situation a punchline, while his level-headed, super-organised wife provides the voice of reason and knows exactly when to cut him down to size.
In one very typical on-screen exchange, Spencer informs Vogue that when he met her he thought she was a juggler from Cirque du Soleil on account of her hands being so large.
She replies quick as a flash: “When I first met you I thought you were a knob.”
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Whatever they thought of each other at that first meeting in Austria two years ago while filming The Jump for Channel 4, life has changed immeasurably for them both since.
Back then, Irish model, DJ and presenter Vogue, 33, was in a very different place. The anxiety that had plagued her since childhood had peaked and after deciding that relationships – including a high-profile divorce from Brian McFadden in 2015 – were making it worse, she’d resolved to stay single while she figured out a way forward.
“My anxiety was probably at an all-time high before The Jump. I look back at pictures and think: ‘God, I’m really skinny there,’ because when you’re anxious you have that feeling in your stomach and don’t feel like eating. I wasn’t sleeping properly, then waking up exhausted and lack of sleep was making the anxiety worse.”
Fast-forward to now and here she is, mum to gorgeous five-month-old Theodore, married to former Made In Chelsea star Spencer, 30, deliriously happy and in a position where she’s able to manage bouts of anxiety.
“Basically I cured your mental illness,” Spencer chips in. “That’s how I’m reading it.”
Vogue raises a weary eyebrow. She admits she initially tried to push her feelings for him aside, cautious of his playboy reputation.
“Oh, I was 100% wary. I was like, ‘Right, I need to go for somebody who’s really nice because I can’t be hurt again.’ That was on top of the way I was feeling [mentally]. So I fought it. The whole time in Austria I was saying: ‘We’re not going out with each other when we get back to London, we’re better as friends.’ Like, friends forever, but I wanted time to myself. I wanted to be single because it was the first time I had been happily on my own.”
It didn’t take long, though, for the famous Spencer charm to win out. When Vogue was back in Ireland having a knee operation (the result of an agonising injury during The Jump, which left her on crutches for three months), she was surprised to find that she “kind of missed him”.
She admits: “It’s hard to deny it. If something works, it just works. I think the fact there was friendship at the start gave us a really good basis for a relationship – it took away the things you’re shy of. That’s why it jumped forward quite quickly.”
Quickly is the word. By the end of the year, Vogue was pregnant with Theodore after just one week of trying, a hit rate Spencer is clearly proud of since he mentions it no less than three times during our chat.
He proposed on stage at London’s Lyceum Theatre after watching a performance of The Lion King and Vogue said yes despite previously describing marriage as having “lost its sparkle” for her after the split from Brian.
“I wasn’t mad about getting married again,” she says.
VOGUE'S FASHION FILE
- My style is… Very changeable! Sometimes I’ll just feel like wearing all black and being really chill, some days I like dressing boyish and then other days I wanna get really dressed up and be girlie. My wardrobe is all over the place.
- My style icons are… Kate Bosworth, Diane Kruger, Olivia Palermo, [blogger] Elle Ferguson and Christine Centenera, the editor of Australian Vogue. And my mum – I get a lot of style tips from her!
- My high-street heroes are… H&M, Zara, River Island and Cos. AndI love Marks & Spencer – oh my god, it’s having a serious moment.
- My top designer labels are… Zimmermann, Celine and Dolce & Gabbana because it’s really out-there, Prada, Diane Von Furstenberg and I’m into all the new Fendi stuff because it’s quite boyish.
- My favourite item of clothing is… My leather trousers. I bought them in Australia about six years ago for AU $400 (£220), which is a huge amount of money, but they’ll last me forever.
- My fail-safe outfit is… A black oversized cashmere polo neck, leather trousers and a pair of black and white Adidas trainers.
- My favourite shoes are… River Island has incredible shoes and Zara always does good heels. Kurt Geiger, too. I don’t care if my foot has a red sole or not. If the shoe’s nice, I want the shoe!
- My favourite bags are… Currently, I’m using my first-ever Louis Vuitton that Spencer bought me for my birthday – I have an obsession with that at the moment. It’s my favourite bag ever.
So what was different about Spencer?
“Everything is different about Spencer. I realised I’d been going for the same type of person all the time – people I wanted to help, I suppose. People I would have to do everything for, but then I’d end up feeling really anxious and stressed because I wasn’t looking after myself. I wasn’t prioritising myself and that wasn’t really good for me – it damaged my self-confidence.
“But then I met Spencer, who is the most self-confident, happy, positive person and everything changed.”
That unwavering confidence knocked her sideways when they were first introduced. She’d never come across anyone as self-assured as Eton-educated Spencer, but she now sees it as one of his best qualities. We could all, reckons Vogue, do with being a bit more Spencer.
However, some might argue that Spencer himself could occasionally do with being a bit less Spencer.
“He can also be arrogant,” she concedes. “But his confidence is something we should all aspire to because if we had a bit more of that we’d probably feel a lot happier.
“When you think about it, it’s an amazing way to be, to just have that self-belief and to not care what anybody else says or thinks about you. That’s not what I’m like at all!”
Her family adore him, she says.
“They loved him straight away. They really did. The others all know this anyway, but I’d say he’s definitely the favourite child-in-law.” (“Standard,” says Spencer.)
Vogue hadn’t expected to conceive quite so quickly – during filming for a documentary on fertility, doctors had warned her that years of being on the Pill might make getting pregnant tricky, so they assumed it would take a while.
Neither was worried about the pressures of a newborn on a fledgling relationship.
“We honestly weren’t,” says Vogue. “Although other people terrified me about having a baby and made me feel like my life would be over, but we haven’t found that.
“Sure, it’s difficult. He was up at 4am this morning for an hour, but it’s so amazing that the hard bits just disappear. Although I know we’re lucky that our baby does sleep well enough.”
Both of them want a second fairly soon – Spencer perhaps sooner than Vogue.
“We’re already trying for another,” he announces. “There’s your headline.”
“No, we’re not!” says Vogue, a little exasperated. “Well, not right now. You don’t want to tell people when you’re trying for another, Spenny, in case it takes ages.”
“Or it might only take a week…”
Sheesh! Is he exhausting to live with?
“Since he’s stopped drinking it’s got worse [Spencer quit booze a year ago]. The drinking used to dull him down a bit, so now he’s just on hyper mode all the time.”
Getting together has undoubtedly led to a rise in their celebrity stock. Vogue, who was better known in Ireland, has seen her UK profile increase and in turn, his association with her has softened Spencer’s image and made him more palatable to those who had him written him off as just another overprivileged Hooray Henry.
They married last summer in Scotland on the 10,000-acre Matthews’ family estate (casual) and have just returned from St Barts, where Spencer’s parents own the luxurious Eden Rock resort.
They were seen over there looking like movie stars, all tanned, toned and beautiful while frolicking on yachts and golden beaches with Spencer’s older brother James, who is married to Pippa Middleton. Pippa’s brother James and his girlfriend Alizee Thevenet were also there. What company!
Much has been made of the fact that she’s now effectively related to Kate and Wills, but Vogue says despite the Matthews’ fortune, aristocratic titles and royal connections, her background isn’t so different.
“Nobody knows it, but I would be considered posh in Ireland. This is a posh Irish accent and I’d say we had similar upbringings. Different backgrounds, yeah, but our parents have brought us up very similarly. I was brought up in a strict household and both of us like that idea, but we are also really close with our parents and want to spend as much time as we can with them.”
Pippa and James’ baby Arthur was born just six weeks after Theodore, but talk of cosy cousin playdates aren’t up for discussion today. It’s the only point of the interview where the otherwise effusive and unguarded Vogue starts to look uncomfortable.
“It’s lovely to spend time with the whole family. We all have a great time and it’s nice to go away together.”
A pause. “But I’m not gonna talk too much about Pippa. They really don’t want to be in the public eye and they hate us talking about them.”
Dressed down today in leggings, a crop top, and no make-up, Vogue still looks like a goddess. There’s a six-pack stomach where the bump used to be and it’s hard not to wonder how in holy hell there was a baby in there just a few months ago. Vogue trained throughout her pregnancy and was back at the gym when Theodore was just four weeks old. Exercise is one of the ways she manages her anxiety.
“I trained the day before I gave birth and the only reason I didn’t on the day I was giving birth was that I had to be in hospital at 6.30am to be induced so I wasn’t able to make a spin class,” she says.
“I just love it. I got a lot of stick over training when I was pregnant. People just wanted to have a go, which I thought was a bit ridiculous.
“I was obviously really careful and it definitely helped me through the pregnancy and the birth. I didn’t do anything to try to lose weight afterwards, it was just muscle memory and the fact I only gained around 10kg [about 11/2st]. Theodore was 4kg [8lb 13oz] and by the time you’ve taken away your placenta and your water, I wasn’t far off my original weight. And breastfeeding burns something like 500 calories a day. But it wasn’t a rush for me and I was never pushing my body.”
She admits to struggling in the past with body image, proving that the insecurities women feel over their bodies really don’t discriminate. Pregnancy and birth helped her learn to appreciate what she didn’t before.
“I’ve always struggled with it. Women are really, really hard on themselves. I hated my body when I was younger, but I can see now that I had nothing to worry about. So much wasted energy.
“Maybe it’s after having a baby, but I might have finally found a place where I feel comfortable in my body. I feel strong. I feel fit. I feel like the female body is an amazing thing to make a human, so I’m not gonna be mean to mine any more.”
It’s set to be a busy year for Vogue, who hosts a travel show in Ireland and is in talks to make another series of documentaries for Irish network RTÉ. There are also various ambassadorial roles with the likes of Ladbrokes, Bulmers and Epsom Races, as well as ongoing DJ work.
There are whispers of Spencer, Vogue And Baby Too returning for a second run on E4 following a positive response from viewers, despite Spencer’s initial reservations.
“Yeah, Spencer doesn’t love reality TV,” says Vogue.
Which is unfortunate seeing as he makes rather a lot of it.
“Oh, I can’t stand reality television,” he confirms, popping up again from the kitchen with Theodore in his arms. “I just don’t like the genre in general. Like, I would never sit at home watching reality television. I’ve never watched any of the shows I’ve done.”
It’s quite the admission.
“It’s funny,” says Vogue, “because I’ve not really done much reality TV, but I love it, whereas Spencer has made so much and doesn’t like it.”
While she thinks Spencer has “matured a little bit” since they got together, she says she can’t take any of the credit for the transformation from womanising party boy to teetotal family man.
“Taming Spencer wasn’t anything to do with me. He grew up. What he was like in his younger years was probably what any boy his age was like.
His was just televised and when I met him, he was out the other side of that.
“He had already grown up and was ready for a relationship. Ready for this kind of relationship.”
Has Theodore changed them as a couple?
“We definitely have less time for each other! But he’s made it better and stronger because we’re so amazed by this little person that’s a part of both of us. We have our own family unit and it’s lovely to think about expanding that.”
Maybe even within the week. Watch this space.
- Vogue Williams’ fake tan range Bare is available in the UK and Ireland from March – visit Barebyvogue.com for more info.
- Hair: Stefan Bertin at Frank Agency using Wella EIMI
- Make-up: Aimee Adams using Mac
- Styling: Nana Acheampong
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