Real reason behind Spencer Matthews and Jamie Laing’s distance finally revealed
They've had a frank conversation.
Jamie Laing and Spencer Matthews just had a frank conversation about their chequered friendship.
The childhood friends, who found fame in Made in Chelsea, locked horns somewhat a few years ago after Jamie and Sophie Habboo didn’t invite Spencer to their legal wedding.
While Spencer was Jamie’s MC for their Spanish bash later that year, he learned about their Chelsea Town Hall legal wedding – for which friends and family were invited – via the papers.
‘I was flying back from somewhere and Vogue [Williams] showed me a Daily Mail article that showed me your London wedding celebrations and loads of your friends there,’ Spencer told Jamie on a recent episode of Great Company.
‘We had had a conversation that it’s not really a friends thing, it’s a family small thing… And there were loads of friends there.’
Ever since, there’s been speculation about a feud between the pair. Now, having only seen each other properly once in two years since Jamie’s wedding, the SW4 pals have hashed things out in a podcast episode.
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Previous Page Next Page The friends have endured somewhat of a rift in their friendship in recent years (Picture: Ian Gavan/Getty Images)‘I found it pretty confusing. I was pretty hurt by that,’ Spencer said of the lack of invite to the London wedding, which saw Sophie stun in a Vivienne Westwood mini dress.
‘I remember thinking, “What have I done to annoy him?” Vogue was just a bit like, it’s pretty weird you wouldn’t be invited to that.
‘I thought, it’s a real shame. At first, I brushed it off as it’s fine and it didn’t matter, but the more I thought about it, I thought it did matter.’
Having previously explained he’d simply forgotten to invite him, Jamie admitted the truth.
‘The true reason for it was this,’ Jamie began, explaining: ‘During the wedding, Soph was having a really tough time with anxiety, we were doing this podcast with the wedding.
‘She said before, “I just want to get married with my feet in the sand. I don’t want this Jamie, you want this.”
‘I was battling, trying to handle this podcast we were doing. I was just thinking about her, and I had my stag do, and you didn’t want to come to the stag do. Which was fine, which I get.
Spencer wasn’t invited to Jamie and Sophie Habboo’s English wedding (Picture: Instagram/Spencer Matthews)To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video
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Previous Page Next Page The pair are childhood best friends, who both found fame on Made In Chelsea (Picture: Shutterstock)‘But for me, it was like, why wouldn’t you want to come to the stag do? So when it came to the English wedding, I was like, this is hectic, this is a lot.
‘It’s going to be complicated if I try to invite him, it’s going to be a small thing for lunch… Will he want to come and do that? In my head, I just thought, fine. It’s one thing less to think about.’
Responding, Spencer said: ‘For the record, I would have loved to have been there. I would have flown from anywhere.’
Spencer, who is now sober, then explained that he doesn’t like the ‘concept of stag dos’.
‘I don’t like the concept of stag dos, I personally think they make whoever you are marrying uncomfortable,’ he said.
‘Even when I went on them, it never really sat well with me. You always get very drunk and behave in ways you might not ordinarily behave in.’
While Spencer, who is married to TV presenter Vogue Williams, said it was water under the bridge now, and Jamie apologised profusely, the pair agreed it was a lack of communication that caused the rift.
They used to party together around London (Picture: Mark Milan/FilmMagic) Spencer is now sober, having battled with alcoholism (Picture: Mark Robert Milan/GC Images)‘It’s a breakdown of communication. In retrospect, I should have come to your stag do for two nights and not drank,’ Spencer said, while Jamie added: ‘I was very selfish, focusing on my own emotions. I am sorry that happened. Even Sophie still today, is like, it’s really bad what happened there.’
The conversation then turned to Jamie’s ultra-marathon. At the time, Spencer had recently done his record-breaking 30 marathons through the desert, and it was perhaps expected that he would show up on the BBC coverage to support Jamie.
However, at that time Spencer didn’t get a call to join him on the charity marathons.
‘I would have loved to have seen you along the way, but I didn’t get a call… I felt like saying, I wasn’t invited… again,’ said Spencer.
‘At the time we weren’t even talking,’ Jamie responded, as Spencer said: ‘I didn’t realise we weren’t really friends.’
The duo once hosted podcast 6 Degrees From Jamie and Spencer together, and interviewed celebrities from Paul Rudd to JLO, before Spencer left to focus on other projects.
While Spencer shares three children – Theodore, Gigi, and Otto – with Vogue, having become a dad in 2018, Jamie is expecting his first child with wife Sophie.
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Previous Page Next PageJamie also told Spencer that he’s a ‘tricky’ person to be friends with, explaining that friendships have to be ‘watered’ to last.
He added that Spencer gets wrapped up in his immediate family and his own projects, and unless you’re in his presence, he can be blinded to anything else.
They also looked back on Made In Chelsea days, and Spencer agreed he would do it again, but looks back on it with shame.
‘The portrayal of myself is slightly shameful. I’m not sure I’d want my son to be like that. I don’t think I admire any traits of Spencer from Made in Chelsea,’ he said, going on to explain why mentions of the show tend to irk him: ‘I don’t find myself that funny or entertaining, I looked drunk. I’m not proud of the work.’
Spencer was a classic Made In Chelsea villain, constantly wrapped up in various relationships, fallouts, and cheating scandals over the years.
Looking back on this time, Spencer revealed for the first time that he thinks this dismissive and unempathetic behaviour could have been in part due to his brother Michael Matthews’ tragic death.
Spencer was just 10 when his older brother Michael died while climbing Mt Everest, and he’s since spent time – through his moving documentary Finding Michael and much introspection – untangling this childhood trauma.
‘It’s this strange thing where almost nothing matters,’ Spencer explained of his behaviour on Made In Chelsea, the London-based reality TV show he joined as an original cast member in 2011.
‘After a few drinks, it’s like, “How do you feel about the Binky situation?” I don’t give a f**k about the Binky situation because my brother died. It’s pointless, it’s tiny, it’s irrelevant.’
In a sweet nod to his wife Vogue, while talking about his journey to his current self, Spencer said: ‘Wanting to be more like Vogue has had a real impact on me becoming a better person.’
At the end of the episode, the pair confirmed they were indeed friends.
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