Spencer Matthews: Drinking, Lying, And How Vogue Saved Him
On The Mend
High Performance
4.9 • 566 Ratings
🗓️ 6 April 2026
⏱️ 42 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
TV personality and endurance athlete Spencer Matthews joins Matt Willis to talk openly about how alcohol quietly took over his life, from waking up drunk and lying to the people closest to him, to feeling isolated, ashamed, and completely disconnected from the person he wanted to be.
He shares how drinking stopped being social and became something he was doing alone, and the moment that forced him to confront what was really going on. There’s no neat turning point, just the realisation that something had to change.
Spencer also reflects on channeling his addictive personality into endurance challenges, the structure that now keeps him on track, and the ongoing tension of replacing one obsession with another.
This episode covers the following themes: addiction, shame, relationships, identity, recovery, discipline, and transformation.
Need Support?
Samaritans: Call 116 123 or visit samaritans.org
Narcotics Anonymous: na.org
Alcoholics Anonymous: alcoholics-anonymous.org.uk
Mental Health Mates: mentalhealthmates.co.uk
Shout: https: giveusashout.org
IAPT: https://www.england.nhs.uk/mental-health/adults/nhs-talking-therapies/
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Want to know who's coming up next? Hit follow wherever you get your podcast and you'll be the first to find out. |
| 0:05.0 | I had a lack of responsibility. |
| 0:08.0 | It was at a time in my life where I'd take a meeting and I'd turn up late and I'd reek of whiskey and |
| 0:13.0 | you know I wouldn't get the job obviously and then I'd blame my agent and you know there's no accountability for your own behaviour. |
| 0:19.0 | That feeling of somebody that you love saying, |
| 0:22.7 | have you had a drink today at 10 in the morning? I knew it was going to ruin my day, but I would do it |
| 0:27.2 | anyway. |
| 0:31.2 | Today's guest I have in what I consider my studio, but it's not my studio. It is our studio. Spence Matthews. Good to fucking see you, mate. |
| 0:41.0 | It's an honour to be here. Great show. Love it, by the way. And a big fan of yours and delighted to |
| 0:47.8 | be doing this podcast swap, I think. It's going to be a podcast swap, which is really exciting. |
| 0:52.6 | So talk to me about untapped, like what happened? |
| 0:54.9 | How did you think about doing it? |
| 0:56.5 | The idea came to me in the Jordanian Desert to kind of reframe some of my professional outlook. |
| 1:04.4 | And I wanted to create a show about human potential, really, and what we're capable of as people. |
| 1:09.6 | And Untapped, I suppose, is harnessing that and speaking to other people who've achieved interesting things, particularly in the world of sport and endurance. I find that there's a lot of crossover perhaps in what we're going to talk about. So addiction and alcoholism into endurance sport, perhaps not at the Olympic level, but just generally speaking, there's interesting crossover between my previous life and my current life. |
| 1:36.5 | I've become very different. |
| 1:38.0 | Yeah. |
| 1:38.3 | I mean, I want to talk you about that because obviously it's fair to say that the Spencer unspicking to today is very different to the Spencer I would have met 10 years ago. |
| 1:48.2 | Yeah, right. I mean, I mean, which is, which is very interesting because I would say the same about me. |
| 1:52.7 | Like, I mean, if you met me like 16 years ago, I was completely, I don't even, I don't even recognize that guy |
| 2:01.2 | I was literally about to say |
| 2:02.3 | do you think you'd recognize yourself |
... |
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