Vogue Williams on marrying Brian McFadden: 'On the day, I remember thinking it doesn't feel right'
Vogue Williams has lifted the lid on anti-ageing injectables as she approaches turning 40 – saying she wants to grow old 'disgracefully' and will be doing Botox 'forever'.
The Irish presenter and podcaster says: 'By the time I'm 55, I'll be going up and up. As the years get higher I'll be doing more and more [Botox] and I won't be apologetic about it.
'I kind of kept all that stuff under wraps. I didn't really confirm or deny it for so long.'
But now, the 39-year-old reveals: 'I just feel like, if anyone wants to do something to make themselves feel better about themselves, who cares? You can either grow old gracefully or disgracefully.
The host of My Therapist Ghosted Me with comedian Joanne McNally, and Vogue and Amber, a podcast with her sister, now has three children with former Made In Chelsea star husband Spencer Matthews.
'Years ago I would have been dreading [turning 40 in October]. But I feel more secure in my life… I've heard your 40s are your best years.'
In her new memoir, Big Mouth, Williams reflects back to her wedding day with her first husband, Westlife star Brian McFadden (although unnamed in the book) who she married in 2012.
'On the day, I just remember thinking it doesn't feel right. I didn't feel like ecstatically happy. I just felt like there were a lot of things had been going wrong, and I felt like this isn't really the right move.
'I just knew. I just had a feeling,' says the TV personality, who rose to fame on Irish reality show Fade Street, later appearing on Dancing With The Stars and Bear Grylls: Mission Survive in 2015, which she won.
Williams and McFadden parted ways after three years. 'It was a nice relationships at times,' she says, 'but it certainly wasn't a stable relationship.' She 'wasn't mature enough' for marriage at 26, she adds. 'I don't think I was ready for it.'
Moving from one long-term relationship to another most of her life, Williams says the period of eight to 12 months of being single after her marriage broke down was 'very important'.
She says: 'I'm the relationship girl. I was always going out with somebody or, in that case, married to somebody. I don't seek it out. It has kind of always just happened to me.'
So she found being single difficult to begin with.
'I was like, I don't like this. I don't want to be single, I don't like being on my own. But towards the end, I really enjoyed my own company, I was able to just feel really comfortable in myself and on my own.
'I had to just learn, learn to be single, renting a place on my own, doing my own shopping, being my own responsibility, and not looking after anyone else. So it was actually quite empowering, I think, to be single.
'It was nice to just rely on yourself.'
Williams grew up in Howth, a seaside town in County Dublin, one of three children. Her parents separated when she was five, with her mum, Sandra, remarrying and going on to have a fourth child.
'When we were with Dad, we spent a lot of time in the pub', she writes in the book. 'My dad would always say, 'This is my last drink', but it never was'.
Her dad, Freddie, died in 2010 after having a stroke following an operation to remove an aneurysm.
'He died of fun,' Williams says though, 'he died at 68 and, in fairness, it wasn't a bad age for him to get to with the life he led. He certainly had a good time.'
A light bulb moment in therapy was when she realised she was 'drawn to men with alcohol-related issues or bad depression and anxiety who need help, help I think I can give them', she writes.
Vogue Williams and Spencer Matthews. Picture: Ian West/PA
It was a similarly familiar story when she met her now-husband Matthews on the ITV ski jumping reality show, The Jump in 2017. But, 'One of the biggest problems Spen and I have encountered in our marriage have been because of booze,' she notes. 'It nearly ended our marriage on a couple of occasions.'
'A therapist was making me figure out why I was ending up in the same kind of situation as I always had,' she says. Spencer quit drinking in 2018, which Williams says changed their marriage for the better.
'He has such passion and drive now, and he just didn't have that when he was drinking.'
The pair have three young children Theodore, Gigi, and Otto, and they are contemplating a fourth – 'If it happens, it happens, but if it doesn't, it doesn't.'
Williams says: 'I've always had a maternal instinct… I kind of love the responsibility and how you can just love something so much, and you're never going to come first again in your whole life. And that's totally fine with me.'
Women, can't win though, she notes.
'Women are made feel like, you're not really a good mum if you're working, and if you're not working, you're just a mum. But I think being a stay-at-home mum, it's more than a full-time job!
'Weekends I take off work as much as I can, and by Sunday night, honestly, I'm crawling into bed at 7pm – it's so tough.'
Balancing work, parenting and time to be herself outside of those two worlds is tough though. 'I'd say the balance is off all the time. I don't think you can ever get the balance right.
'I don't think that you can ever not feel some kind of guilt in some kind of way, whether it be about work, [or] about how much time you're spending with the kids.'
Her career may have been built in the scrutiny of the public eye but she says it helps that she doesn't take herself too seriously – aside from work and parenting – 'I probably have had too much of a good time, all the time. I'm lucky that I laugh a lot everyday. I just think life is about having fun when you can and enjoying yourself when you can – and I like to do a lot of that.'
Big Mouth by Vogue Williams is published in hardback by HarperCollins. Available May 22.
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