What WILL Carole make of her daughter's new sister-in-law?
Made in Chelsea star Spencer Matthews and Irish model Vogue Williams are engaged
For Carole Middleton, it might just be enough to have her reaching for the smelling salts.
After the triumph of seeing one daughter become Britain’s future queen, she faces the less appealing prospect of having a pair of C-list celebrities in her extended family circle.
The couple in question are Made In Chelsea’s Spencer Matthews and Irish model Vogue Williams, slightly famous for marrying Brian McFadden of boyband Westlife.
Spencer, 28, and Vogue, 32, met on a reality TV show, share an agent, and have just announced their engagement in a very modern way – by posting the news on Instagram.
He presented her with a diamond ring, said to be worth £150,000, after proposing at a production of The Lion King in London.
True to form for a couple who make endless posts on social media, often of themselves looking great wearing not much on a beach, Vogue was soon showing off the ring to her online followers.
They recently bought a home in Kensington worth £1million.
And why should any of this trouble Carole Middleton? Well, last year her daughter Pippa married one James Matthews – Spencer’s older brother.
James, a hedge fund manager, wed Kate’s younger sister in a royalty-heavy event at which Prince George and Princess Charlotte were page boy and bridesmaid and the guest list seemed to be composed largely of friends of Pippa’s brother-in-law, Prince William.
The wedding was a milestone in Carole’s progress from decorator’s daughter raised in a council house to royal grandmother.
And in this exalted milieu, the newly engaged pair are likely to stand out.
Left, Pippa Middleton on her wedding day to James Matthews and right, her parents Michael and Carole Middleton
Spencer was at Pippa’s wedding, and made a reportedly funny speech as best man – but Vogue was not present. On the day she was detained by a pressing engagement at Arnotts department store in Dublin, where she was hawking her fitness and beauty book.
Some said that this was down to a ‘no ring, no bring’ policy, introduced by Pippa to make sure that there would be no limelight hogging – however Meghan Markle did score an evening invitation.
Now, though, Pippa and Vogue will be sisters-in-law. And the relatively low-profile Middletons could be in for a shock. Vogue’s love of publicity is such that she took a gynaecological examination on camera to check whether she was fertile as part of one of her reality TV shows, Vogue Williams Investigates, last year.
And Spencer – memorably described as ‘Made In Chelsea’s resident idiot’ and who boasted about drug use, orgies and having 1,000 sex partners – will no doubt receive even more chances to shine on the small screen.
So who are the naffest fiances in the country? They have 800,000 Instagram followers between them and pots of cash from deals with celebrity magazines, TV shows and the makers of trainers, motorbikes and handbags who they like to plug.
Spencer Matthews and Vogue Williams are seen arriving at Heathrow Airport this morning
Not that this is evident, yet, in any accounts filed at Companies House. Vogue is the director of one company under her real name Vogue Wilson, which ultimately owns her pad in Dublin. Spencer is the director of one firm which has just £613 in its profit and loss accounts, according recently filed papers.
Sadly, judging by Vogue’s toe-curling appearance on Celebrity Mastermind (her specialist subject was Kim Kardashian) and Spencer’s habitual dim-bulb act in interviews, they may be lacking in intellectual fire-power.
Spencer George Matthews is the third son of landowner David Matthews, from his second marriage to Jane Spencer Parker, a Zimbabwean artist.
David became a millionaire several times over running a car dealership.
He and Jane had three sons, James, Michael and Spencer – all educated at Eton – and lived in a manor house near Grantham.
When he retired, David Matthews bought the Eden Rock Hotel in St Barts, and Spencer spent happy teenage years here.
In his 2013 autobiography, Confessions Of A Chelsea Boy, he talked about spending the summer when he was 16 experimenting with cocaine and trying out the island’s nightclubs. He worked as a nightclub promoter and in the hotel.
Vogue Williams shows off her diamond engagement ring said to be worth £150,000
Spencer and Vogue announced their engagement on Instagram, pictured, his post
Later he acted as PR manager for London clubs Movida, Amika and royal favourite Boujis. ‘Lots of drinking, lots of partying,’ he said. Then he worked as a foreign exchange trader at a currency brokers.
There were wild nights when he would spend £7,000 at The Box nightclub and fall into bed with women he barely knew. At one time he had a sexual encounter which involved six people.
Made In Chelsea made him a star in 2011. Nobody in their band of well-heeled show-offs was nearly as badly behaved as Spencer, who worked his way through the female cast and attracted outrage and attention in equal measure.
An attempt to take part in I’m A Celebrity ... Get Me Out Of Here! in 2015 ended before he got into the jungle after it emerged that he had been taking ‘steroid medication’ to bulk up for a charity boxing match. He said later that he had wanted to ‘look good in the shower’.
He met Vogue Williams when both were contestants on Channel 4 reality series The Jump, where celebrities learned to ski jump. They admitted they were an item in April 2017 and the romance has been a whirlwind since then, with the couple going on numerous holidays, buying a home together, buying matching signet rings, and spending the festive season with his family.
Spencer, left with Vogue, was at Pippa’s wedding (right, Pippa and James on their honeymoon in Australia), and made a reportedly funny speech as best man - but Vogue was not present
Vogue, the youngest of three children, grew up in Dublin and was named, she thinks after the magazine, by her grandmother. Her parents divorced when she was seven and her mother Sandra later married a property developer.
Vogue, who was sent to live with her father for a year after being suspended from school, started her modelling career at 16. In 2010 she was cast in Irish reality show Fade Street.
Soon after she met Brian McFadden and within months she had moved to Australia, where he was a judge on Australia’s Got Talent. In September 2012 they married in a lavish ceremony in Florence, but separated in 2014 and, she says, are ‘no longer friends’.
After they separated she was diagnosed with anxiety, which she still battles. She said: ‘It is horrible. Sometimes I wouldn’t want to go out. I don’t know where it stems from. Usually it goes away when I am really busy.
‘I have started wearing gum shields again because I grind my teeth really badly when I go to bed. I will get a racing heart and my whole body is tense.’
Her status as McFadden’s ex helped to get her on to shows including Bear Grylls: Mission Survive, which she won in 2015 after spending 12 days in the rainforests of Costa Rica.
Rather less successful was her appearance on Celebrity Mastermind last year. She correctly answered ten out of 12 questions on Kim Kardashian but flunked the general knowledge round, managing only one correct answer.
Perhaps life in the Matthews and Middleton families will prove to be less of a challenge.