Television presenter Vogue Williams has recalled feeling embarrassed following her divorce from Westlife singer Brian McFadden when she was 30 years old.
The 40-year-old media personality opened up about the emotional aftermath of her broken marriage on her podcast, My Therapist Ghosted Me, which she co-hosts alongside Irish comedian Joanne McNally.
Williams addressed the topic after a podcast listener wrote to the show seeking guidance on overcoming heartbreak after becoming a divorcée at age 30. Reflecting on her own experience, Williams admitted that the end of her marriage initially left her feeling consumed by shame and uncertainty about her future.
My Therapist Ghosted Me, which launched in 2021, features Williams and McNally sharing candid insights into their personal lives and offering comedic relationship advice while answering questions submitted by listeners.
Williams admitted that she felt deeply self-conscious when her marriage dissolved. "I was so embarrassed when the whole thing had happened. I just was like, 'This is the worst'," she said during the recording.
The presenter revealed that she convinced herself she would never marry again or have a family of her own. "I had made myself come to terms with the fact that I was never going to have kids and that I was never going to be married again," Williams explained. "I was just going to have to like live a life of being single. And I was like, 'I'm going to enjoy being single for once in my life'."
She shared that adapting to life on her own required an adjustment period after spending years continuously in relationships. "I did enjoy being single and it took about three months because I was so used to being in relationships and then I enjoyed being single," she recalled.
Williams was wed to McFadden, 46, from 2012 until 2017. McFadden rose to international fame in the late 1990s as a founding member of the Irish boyband Westlife, a pop group formed in Dublin that achieved numerous number-one singles across the United Kingdom. Following his departure from the group, McFadden pursued a solo music career and worked as a television host. Williams had established her own career as an Irish model, radio presenter, and television personality.
Her outlook transformed in 2017 when she met television personality Spencer Matthews while filming the Channel 4 winter sports reality series, The Jump. The show brought celebrity contestants together in Austria to compete in challenging winter sports disciplines. Matthews had previously gained public recognition as an original cast member on E4's reality television show Made in Chelsea, which follows the lives of wealthy young adults in South West London.
Finding love again with Spencer Matthews
Williams and Matthews tied the knot in 2018. The couple have since expanded their family and are parents to four children: eight-year-old Theodore, six-year-old Gigi, four-year-old Otto, and baby boy Remy Valentine, whom Williams welcomed earlier this month.
Reflecting on how drastically her personal life changed after turning 30, Williams offered reassurance to the listener navigating a split. "Then I met somebody and now I'm sitting on this podcast breastfeeding my fourth child. So this could be you at 40," she said.
Williams has previously opened up about the strain surrounding her first marriage. In her autobiography, titled Big Mouth, she described her wedding to McFadden as a mistake and recalled experiencing severe anxiety and stress on the day of the ceremony.
"The morning of the wedding I felt very stressed and so anxious because deep down I knew I had made a mistake," Williams wrote in the book. She added that while she tried to salvage the relationship after marrying, continuing the marriage ultimately proved unsustainable.
Reflections on past relationship and future paths
"The relationship wasn't all terrible, we did have some great times too, and for the most part he was good fun to be around. But he was not husband material," she recounted in her memoir. She noted that she was the one who ultimately chose to end the relationship because continuing to try felt pointless.
In the book, Williams wrote: "It was me who called it in the end. I couldn't keep trying, it felt pointless… I'm not here to throw anyone under the bus but there are things that went on in our relationship that will never be forgiven."
McFadden has also built a new life following their divorce, marrying his third wife, former physical education teacher and lifestyle blogger Danielle Parkinson. The couple share a daughter named Ruby, born in 2021, and tied the knot in July last year during a beach ceremony in Cornwall, a coastal county in South West England.
