Who on earth is better suited to present a podcast than Vogue Williams? The queen of the genre, she can talk not only about her native Ireland, but also about her adopted countries of England, Wales, and Scotland. Masu.
I ask if it's true that she once got suspended from school for talking too much. “I've been suspended twice,” she says. “I think I drove the nuns crazy. They had to put up with me talking so much and distracting everyone in the class.''
“I couldn't have been more restrained doing cleaning chores on a Friday afternoon before being suspended from school. The second time around, I found out I had a week off, which I quite liked. I was very excited. My mom wasn't too excited.”
It turns out that her mother also suspended her. Or at least asked wayward Vogue to leave her parents' house for a while.
“When I was 17, my mother kicked me out of the house, which was understandable,” she recalls. “I would have kicked you out too.”
Vogue Williams has joined the Daily Mail's excellent and fast-growing podcast division with a series called The Apple & The Tree, which explores the relationships between adult children and their parents.
Returning to this story, the more she chatters, the more she realizes that if the nuns at her Catholic school had locked her young Vogue in a cupboard with her friends, microphones, and recording equipment, she would have made a podcast. It became clear that we might have been able to invent . Format yourself.
Fortunately, she earned a degree in building construction and surveying (“my stepfather wasn't really interested in a career in the media, so he insisted on it”), worked in modeling, and eventually landed a career in reality. I found my way into the show.
But it's in podcasting that she rose to the top. At last year's British Podcast Awards, Vogue, now 38, won the champion award for her podcast My Therapist Ghosted me, which she co-hosts with her friend Joanne McNally. She has 3 million monthly listeners. Her most popular podcast is “Spencer & Vogue,'' which she co-hosts with her husband, TV star Spencer Matthews (whom she calls “Spenny'').
The pair, who met on Channel 4's The Jump in 2017, have just traveled to Dubai to take to the stage for their podcast, but toned down the fruity content to meet strict decency laws. She admits it was necessary. “You can't do anything in Dubai. There's a part where Spenny takes off his top. He said, 'You can't do it anyway?' I said, “Absolutely not.” If I go to jail, I'll go home. '
Now, Vogue has joined the Daily Mail's illustrious and rapidly growing podcast division with a series called The Apple and the Tree, which explores the relationships between adult children and their parents.
As she says, relationships with our parents are the first relationships we have and are often the most complex. In each episode, she asks her adult children to ask the questions her parents have always wanted answers to.
She was deeply moved by some of the personal stories from her subjects. “This is a little different than my other podcasts. We recorded them in people's homes. Some asked their parents questions. It's often very difficult questions, but important It was also a question.”
The subjects are not celebrities, but ordinary people who have sometimes gone through difficult journeys in life.
Sam talks to his father Rakku about his reaction to being gay and the struggles and prejudice he has faced in the Indian community because of his sexuality.
Romanian-born Ana was pregnant and only 20 years old when she defected to the UK. She talks to her British-born daughter Laura about the trauma of leaving her homeland for a new life and the ongoing racism she and other Romanians are subjected to.
Admittedly, it's definitely a more serious tone than many would expect, and Vogue is more than happy to take a backseat and let its subjects tell their stories, but the experience of recording the podcast was deeply affected. she says. “Some people are heartbroken by family circumstances. We have a man with motor neurone disease and another family whose father committed suicide. Hearing Taka is also very encouraging.
“It certainly makes me think that no matter what problem you think you have, other people are going through it much worse.”
The “talking is good” approach is very fashionable. She is a strong believer in therapy and digging into the deep trenches of our past. “You know why I love it so much? Every family, including mine, has things they don't talk about.”
Do you feel a confession coming? Only up to a certain point. “I think it would be very beneficial to our family, but I don't think we would ever do it,” she says frankly. “You don't want to bring up the past. You always want to be happy. There are some things in my family that we never discuss. I know that's not possible. There are things I would like to talk about. , I know it probably won’t pay off.”
This suggests a deep, indescribable darkness, but this is not necessarily the case. Rather, he is saying that every family has “problems.”
Vogue and her husband, TV star Spencer Matthews (whom she calls 'Spenny'), met on Channel 4's 'The Jump' in 2017.
She brings back memories of her own childhood, albeit in a very refreshing way. She spent her childhood in Portmarnock, a suburb of Dublin, but her parents divorced when she was five years old.
“I don't remember it being particularly difficult, but I think it certainly was when we were going through it. My dad lived nearby and I used to see him every other week and every Wednesday. ” Her parents were chalk and cheese. Her mother, Sandra, was a glamorous airline stewardess (she's now an Instagram icon herself, with whom she swaps outfits and fashion advice). Her father Freddie was a used car salesman.
“Actually, I don't know why they broke up. I thought they were never right for me, but I don't know that. They know.'
Vogue was one of three children. She and Spencer now have three children, Theodore, 5, Gigi, 3, and Otto, who just turned 2, and she is now deeply impressed by her mother's methods (“Who's Me?”) I'm her best friend. I talk to her every day.'') I dealt with it when my marriage ended.
“She was a single mother for a long time, and lo and behold, that's the hardest thing in the world. She was on a transatlantic flight and then came home and worked in a restaurant and supported us. .”
Her father, as is often the case, coped well with the more enjoyable parts of parenting. “He was a great crazy guy. He would come to school and pass us ice cream and Snickers bars over the fence. Everybody was jealous. But he was always there. I… I was very close to him and he was as good a father as could be.”
He died of a stroke in 2010 after years of declining health, perhaps without the help of a live-for-the-day lifestyle (“He was the kind of guy who put butter on his potato chips”). His death was another decisive moment, and his absence in her life today became one of her biggest regrets.
“I still miss him every day. I dream about him, strange dreams of him helping me choose a new kitchen. When he was alive, I didn't have any money. He never got to see my kids, but I'm sure he loved them. He was always there for Spenny and I's holidays, and he probably led Spenny astray. It would have been.”
However, the influence of another man in her life provided her with the stability she needed. Her stepparents often get a bad rap, but her stepfather Neil Wilson, a successful businessman, replaced her when she was seven years old. While she was happy enough at the time (she said, “because she got her new girlfriend Play-Doh”), she can now see the bigger picture.
“Well, first of all, he changed my mother's life. She was finally able to relax. The strange thing is, he didn't have any children of his own. I still tell him this. “Are you sane?'' But how much he loved my mother for taking us in. He didn't even consider us her baggage, he loved her very much.
“He still makes her breakfast in bed. When they argue, she says, 'Then you don't need breakfast tomorrow,' as if he's threatening her.”
He gave me financial and mental stability and discipline.
“Neil used to be a teacher. He's Scottish, so he's very strict. Education was important to him. If it hadn't been for him, I wouldn't have gone to university. It was the right thing to do — even though I had strong objections to it at the time.
I felt bad for Neil when Vogue was a teenager.
“Neil called my sister and I monsters, and we were. We were a nightmare. It wasn't bad, but in hindsight I wish I had taken school more seriously. could have been done too.
“I think I just laid in bed with my science book over my face in case my mom came in because I was going to review.
“Then there was underage drinking (I drank Bloomers Cider at 14, although I wasn't caught there) and sneaking out of the house to go to clubs and festivals.
“When I said I was going to stay at my dad's house, she would say, 'I'm not going to nightclubs right now.' But of course I did.” Was it exploited? “Of course, what kid wouldn't do that?”
Her mother asked Vogue to move her after one too many bust enlargements.
“I think it was when I went to a festival that I wasn't supposed to go to. My mom was like, 'Yeah, that's enough, you can go live with your dad.' I went to stay with him for a little while and he let me get away with murder.
“I was going to forge a note and get out of school and sign a letter saying I consented. It was a nightmare for me.”
Her mother, she said today, “I'm sorry, Mom, you were absolutely right,” eventually let her go home.
“It wasn't that long, maybe three months, but did you behave well when you got home again?” Yes, it did. ”
She simply cannot believe that she is actually being very particular about following the rules today. 'I really am. If we were at the airport and Spenny wanted to go through the fast track even though we didn't have tickets for it, I would say “no!” There are rules.'
There are some very Irish things about Vogue, like her warmth and easy chat, but there's also a self-help charm that feels far more Los Angeles than Dublin.
She has always been open about her history with anxiety on her podcast, and is conscious of using diet and exercise to manage her symptoms. In the past, she has undergone intensive therapy, which she still soaks in. She said she has booked a therapy session for next week, which she said is like getting her nails done.
'I love it. Not everyone can do it, and I've done it more intensively in the past, but I haven't seen a therapist in six months. There's nothing wrong with it, but I think it would be useful to have a session. It just gives you a fair choice. You can ask, “Why am I feeling this way?” And then you start feeling grounded again. “Or maybe I'm just paying someone to say, 'You're right.'”
What will Vogue do next? While she has countless business ventures underway (she's collaborated with all sorts of fashion houses and even has her own self-tan line), what she hasn't done yet is focus on parenting specifically. (although she mentions it on other shows). That's still a long way off, but I'd suggest that the coming teenage years may provide plenty of material. She shudders when she thinks about it, and she reveals that it's her daughter Gigi who she's worried about.
“Girls are so easy going when they're young, but when they get older and the hormones come in, it turns into a nightmare in a way. But then, because I was such a brat, we'll see what happens. My children can’t be worse than me, can they?”
