Spencer Matthews reveals reality behind world report feat

Spencer Matthews may have lost over a stone and a half during his awe-inspiring endurance challenge in the Jordanian desert, his body shedding up to five litres of sweat a day, but as he completed his 30th marathon in 30 days this week, he felt like twice the man he ever did during his alcohol-soaked twenties.

Back then, the Old Etonian played to perfection the part of the posh playboy in the reality TV show Made in Chelsea that made his name.

He was a Casanova, a figure of fun, a man who endlessly ordered shots at the bar and fell into waiting taxis.

The only thing he felt he ever succeeded at was self-sabotage, bouncing from one party to another as he buried deep inside him the shame he felt at flinging away all the opportunities his hard-working parents had given him.

For Spencer, this shame was all the more painful because it existed alongside the grief he felt at the loss of his beloved older brother, Michael.

Spencer was only 10 when Michael, a City trader, became the youngest ever Briton to climb Everest, in 1999, aged 22.

He disappeared just three hours after his record-breaking climb, as he made his way down through heavy snow. His body has never been found.

Last year Spencer made a moving TV documentary about trying to find his brother’s body on Everest, to no avail.

It’s not hard to see, then, how important it was for Spencer to complete his own record-breaking challenge, cementing both his sobriety and the respect of his family with a physical quest so impressive he’s in danger of becoming a national treasure.

With him every step, he tells me in his first in-depth interview since completing his extraordinary feat (which saw him awarded a Guinness World Record yesterday live on radio) was the memory of Michael, his own intrepid hero.

‘I’m feeling quite emotional,’ he says apologetically, as if anyone would begrudge him a few tears. ‘I genuinely felt it was a dream at times.

‘Ten years ago, when I had this terrible relationship with alcohol, and I was really ashamed of my behaviour, this kind of challenge would have been inconceivable.

‘To be able to prove my former self wrong is a journey in itself. It’s quite a profound thing for me. It’s impossible that it could have gone better. Everything aligned. Mike must have been helping me.’

The pair had been so close some described them as ‘twins separated only by time’.

Little wonder that Michael’s death bears an indelible imprint on 36-year-old Spencer. ‘I don’t want to sound weird, but I spoke to Mike every morning [of the marathons],’ he admits. These conversations with his late brother kept him going through some pretty dark moments.

‘I had a shocking first marathon,’ he says. ‘It was fast, but it was really painful. I had a niggle in my right knee and the whole thing was quite distressing, actually.

‘I suddenly thought, “What if I roll my ankle or break something?” I felt quite ropey and I remember thinking, “This is going to be a hell of a month, I have 29 of these left.

‘This isn’t normal behaviour, this has never been done before. Is it dangerous? Is it possible?” I realised early on I’d potentially bitten off more than I could chew.’

An accomplished broadcaster, Spencer also presents chart-topping podcasts including his Big Fish series, where he interviews guests on success and adversity, as well as his deeply personal Daily Mail podcast, Everything I Know About Me.

He and I have been friends since we met earlier this year when he interviewed me for his podcast to discuss how my own alcoholism had shaped me. We bonded over our experiences, and our mutual love of running, born out of the measures we have both taken to control our destructively addictive behaviour.

For Spencer, he’s channelled his past vice into what he calls ‘that competition inside myself . . . It was such an important driver for me. For a long time I thought it was all for Mike. I wanted Mike to be proud of me and, of course, those things matter to me.

‘But when you have been where we have been,’ he says, referring to our shared alcoholism, ‘I think I’m just desperate to show myself that I am better than all of that, and that I am stronger than all of it, and I can beat it. Doing this proves that.’

H is parents David and Jane, the self-made multi-millionaire owners of luxury Caribbean resort Eden Rock, St Barths, are unbelievably proud of him, and it is clear this thrills Spencer.

He admits that at his lowest moment in the desert, he called his mother. She could tell from his voice that all was not well.

‘There was an element of fear I think, particularly for Mum. I think anything that feels potentially risky is anxiety-inducing, as it would be to any mother who’s lost a child.’

To that end, his team pulled out all the stops to ensure he was safe. He smiles as he tells me their not-so-catchy motto: ‘Good preparation is the antithesis of jeopardy.’

How times have changed.

It was only after meeting his now-wife, Irish model-turned-broadcaster Vogue Williams when both took part in the winter sports reality show The Jump in 2017, that he realised how dangerous his booze-fuelled partying had become.

By the time she was pregnant with their first child, he was climbing into bed with her having drunk a bottle of whisky. ‘I was drinking on my own,’ he says. ‘I would drink in secrecy. I would lie about drinking.

‘It was beginning to create distrust in the people who loved me the most. They could see I’d had a drink but I was too ashamed to admit I had had, so would lie about it, then I’d feel like a loser.

‘I couldn’t understand why I was drawn to the liquor cabinet at 11am, having a swig of vodka that I’d then lie about, which would make me feel I needed another swig of vodka. I was like, “What is going on, that I’ve lost control of who I am?” ’

His father, David, built his fortune through hard graft at a Rotherham garage and a car dealership, before becoming a hotelier. His brother, James, is a successful hedge fund manager, and married to the former Pippa Middleton, sister of the Princess of Wales.

‘I grew up in a privileged environment, where I was made to feel like anything was possible. In my house, that feeling was just normal. As a young man, I always had stuff at my disposal to become whoever I wanted to be, and there I was flinging it all away. It was making me really ashamed of myself.’

So bad did Spencer’s addiction become that at one point he began to feel almost an outsider in his own family.

‘My dad and brother [James] didn’t fully trust me,’ he says. ‘They would keep some information to themselves. They were sensitive about how they would talk to me about family stuff because they were worried I would speak openly about it with strangers. They’re private people, and they were probably right not to trust me.’

The reformed Spencer won’t be drawn on whether the Prince and Princess of Wales have been in touch about his challenge, but he proudly tells me: ‘I have spoken to Pippa and James, who have done their share of awesome challenges, and I’m sure they won’t mind me saying they’re kind of blown away by it. I think we all are.’

Anyone who has battled with alcoholism will tell you of its pervasive hold and Spencer is no different. For years, he tells me, alcohol remained ‘this barbaric thing on my back. It was always there. It was always in my head’.

The birth of his first son in January 2019 gave him the impetus he needed, as he puts it, to ‘starve the demon’. He applied himself to physical challenges, signing up for the gruelling Marathon de Sables in 2021 followed by an 230km ultra marathon in the Amazon last year.

Eventually, his desire for drink became sated with the rush of these new accomplishments. So much so that he can proudly say his three children – Theodore, five, Gigi, three, and Otto, one – have never seen him drunk.

The idea of a boozy session now horrifies him: ‘You wouldn’t catch me having a beer on a Friday afternoon in the pub.’

It’s hard not to conclude, though, that Spencer has merely replaced one addiction with another – alcohol with extreme running.

He agrees, not that he views this as a negative thing. ‘I will always be an addict, so if I can instead fix it to something positive, that raises money for charity; if I can channel my addictive nature, which I will never be able to change, into sport and health and fitness and family and work and love – if you want to be soppy – then I think that’s great.’

Undoubtedly, his grief for his brother is a golden thread which links so many of his professional and charitable projects.

T his latest endeavour has so far raised more than £511,000 for Global’s Make Some Noise project, which funds small charities across the UK, some of which help bereaved children, a cause obviously close to his heart.

Meeting the children who would be assisted by the charity helped him persevere.

‘I met with a lot of those young people before I left, and it made a massive difference when I was running, to think of these children who were bereaved through losing their siblings, and not having a supportive place to deal with the grief.

‘I had a loving family, and we felt like we lost Mike together, so I was quite lucky in that regard.

‘The pain I was going through in this [challenge] was temporary. It was a 30 day thing, and I get to go back to my life after.

‘Some days I’d wake and moan I’d had only two hours sleep. Then I’d think, “Shut up, get on with it, try to make some money for people who actually need it.”’

For all his resolve, it’s clear, however, that running from Wadi Rum on the edge of the Arabian desert to near the Dead Sea in Jordan was a Herculean physical task.

Setting off at 2.30am each day so he could complete each run before the heat became unbearable, injuries were inevitable.

As he initially got used to running on unstable sand, he was unable to walk for a few hours after each marathon. Problems arose with his Achilles tendons and his knee caps.

During marathon number six, he experienced a pain in his right ankle so bad he thought the game was up. ‘It felt I was being stung by a bee. I carried on but it got to the point I couldn’t put any pressure on it at all. That was the only time I thought, “I’m going to have to hobble through the remaining 24 marathons.” That was such a crushing thought.

‘My physio, Johnny, untied my shoe, didn’t even take it off, took out some inflammation cream from Boots, rubbed it in, then said, “I think you’ve had your trainers tied a bit tight, mate.” He fixed it, just from untying my shoe laces! He had to tie my laces for the next few days, which was rather embarrassing.’

The physical demands were only heightened by his living conditions. Spencer says the toughest times came when he wasn’t running. ‘The camp element of it was something I wasn’t expecting at all. I can’t even tell you how awful some of them were. We were sleeping rough every night – no beds, no running water, no toilets.’

He lived on a diet of hummus and pitta, ‘which is delicious, but you quickly get bored of it’, especially when you’re burning about 8,000 calories a day.

It was the insects, though, that bothered him most. His description of the flies that descended every time he stopped moving is almost grotesque.

‘Some camps were so fly-infested it was impossible to sit down, relax, have a conversation or nap.

‘You’d sit down and within 16 seconds you’d have 50 to 100 flies on you. They’d be in your ears, on your lips, up your nostrils.

‘Then you’d get a plate of food, and all the flies would be on it, so you’re just kind of marching around, trying to eat, constantly swatting them away.’

Nighttime brought little respite. He mostly survived on fewer than three hours sleep. ‘Then you’re running your marathons, and while you’re running you’re thinking, “As soon as I finish this marathon, I’m going to go to sleep”.

‘Then you get to the next camp and it’s even worse than the one the day before. There are even more flies, it’s even hotter, it’s 45 degrees, there’s no shade at all.’

It’s understandable, then, when he says his gruelling runs ‘were by miles the best part of the day, because the flies don’t touch you when you’re running’.

The runs were also, he says, incredibly scenic. ‘The Wadi Rum desert is a place to behold. It’s the kind of place you would want to propose to your partner. It’s insanely beautiful, a cinematic experience, dark red sand and canyons and purple rock. A lot of the time we slept outside on a mat staring up at the universe thinking, “Isn’t this incredible?” ’

On the penultimate day, Vogue, 38, flew out with their children. ‘Big shout-out to her,’ he smiles. ‘I couldn’t have done it without her support. She’s a rock star, letting me go away for 30 days.’

Their relationship is one very much founded on equality and mutual support. After congratulating him, Vogue then left the children with Spencer in Jordan so she could fly back to her native Ireland to launch a skincare brand.

Spencer and the children returned to their London home on Thursday, enjoying a pizza party with family and friends.

His target now is to run a marathon under three hours before the year is out. And he insists there will be other adventures, as soon as the time is right.

‘I know I’ve got more to give,’ he says. ‘This challenge is over, but I think it’s the beginning of a whole new chapter.

‘This has been one of the greatest experiences of my life. It will be one to tell the grandkids.’

But mostly, it is a tale to tell the younger Spencer, the lost boy inside him who struggled for so long.

• To donate to Global’s Make Some Noise campaign go to www.makesomenoise.com/spencer-matthews-desert-challenge