Vogue Williams has revealed the real reason she has refused to take Spencer Matthews' surname throughout their eight-year marriage, following months of speculation about their relationship. The Irish model and TV presenter, 40, who is pregnant with their fourth child, made the candid confession while discussing the former Made in Chelsea star's persistent requests for her to adopt his name.
Why Vogue Williams Keeps Her Maiden Name
"Spennny always wants me to change my name to Matthews, and I'm like, mmm, I just feel like I have a track record, and it's very difficult to change your name," Vogue explained. "And then to change everything back." The star was previously married to Westlife singer Brian McFadden, 46, from 2012 to 2017. The experience of having to reverse her name change after their divorce has clearly left its mark.
"Also, I'm like, by the way, I love my name, Vogue Williams, and [Spencer]'s like, but you're not Vogue Williams, though," she continued. "That's actually true because I changed my name when I was 17." Speaking on the latest episode of her podcast My Therapist Ghosted Me, which she hosts with comedian and Celebrity Traitors star Joanne McNally, Vogue admitted she is not technically Vogue Williams at all — legally, she is Vogue Wilson, having taken her stepfather Neil Wilson's surname as a teenager.
"I am legally Wilson, but I use Williams because I was Williams when I was born," she explained. Vogue changed her surname to Wilson at 17 after her mother Sandra married businessman Neil Wilson. Her biological father Freddie died in 2010.
Children Carry the Matthews Name
Despite her reluctance to take on another new surname, Vogue confirmed that her children with Spencer, 37 — Theodore, seven, Gigi, five, and Otto, four — all carry the Matthews name. The couple met filming Channel 4's The Jump in Austria in January 2017. Though Vogue initially thought Spencer was "a sociopath" based on his Made In Chelsea playboy reputation, romance quickly blossomed.
Spencer proposed during a production of The Lion King in February 2018, and they married at his family's Glen Affric Estate in Scotland that June. The wedding came just months after Vogue's divorce from Brian was finalised in 2017. She has previously described feeling "painfully embarrassed" by the breakdown of her first marriage, revealing she knew she'd "made a mistake" on the morning of her wedding to the former boyband star.
"I remember being divorced at 31 and thinking, I've ruined my life. I am never going to have kids, I am never going to do what I always wanted to do," Vogue has said.
