Vogue Williams is a podcaster, novelist, DJ, TV personality, and businesswoman with few strings left to her bow. She has met another – a ghost hunter.
One of showbiz’s busiest stars has undergone one of the most terrible occupations imaginable: investigating some of Ireland’s most haunted locations in the hopes of uncovering some of the country’s most chilling mysteries and murders.
Vogue, 37, is joined by a team of paranormal specialists as she interviews residents who have been terrorised by ghosts and are longing for peace.
If this seems like a nightmare, that’s because it was.
‘It got to the point where I literally was counting down the shows because I actually felt too frightened,’ Vogue admits.
‘Every time I’d be going back to something, I was like, “Oh, God.” We wouldn’t finish filming until 1 or 2am and then I’d have to go back to a hotel on my own and I would sleep with the lights on.
‘I found it really frightening, but you’re putting yourself in a frightening situation and you’re trying to do scary things, which just makes it so much worse. My anxiety was through the roof daily. I was like, “why am I doing this to myself?”’
Naturally, there were occasions when Vogue almost hurled up because the overwhelming terror got too much for her.
‘There were a lot of those moments, especially when I was going home on my own,’ she concedes.
‘I couldn’t get Spenny [husband Spencer Matthews] to come with me because he had to be here for the kids. If I knew I returning to a hotel room with Spenny waiting for me that would have been grand. It was just when I got home I was like, “have I invited this kind of crap into my life?”’
I was like, ‘why am I doing this to myself?’
So far, it appears she is safe and has left the ghosts behind, but how would you handle any of the instances explored by Vogue?
‘We were in a place called Charleville Castle where two children died hundreds of years ago. A family currently live there but they just constantly hear giggling along the stairs.
‘The little girl fell off the stairs and that’s how she died but they just have some so much weird activity happening. The staff, there’s one room they go into and there’s male spirits just shouting profanities at them like ‘b***h’ in their ear.’
Ok…
Anyone who listens to Vogue’s tremendously successful podcast, My Therapist Ghosted Me, which she co-hosts with best friend, comedian, and diaper aficionado Joanne McNally, knows that even before Spooked, Vogue had a macabre fixation with death.
‘I don’t think this helped that,’ she says. ‘I think it massively enhanced it. I know we’re all afraid of death but some people think about it more than other people and I’m one of those people.
‘I just want to feel that there would be something else.
‘I’ve read a fair amount of books about it but the show definitely got me more into the topic.’
Vogue is satisfied with the five separate occupations she’s juggling at the same time while parenting three children after dominating most corners of the showbiz arena and possessing a varied CV.
She does, however, know which road she will never follow.
‘My idea of hell would be to be a stand- up comedian like Joanne but we’re kind of like working around doing stuff like that and like being on stage which has just been such a cool career turn.
‘I love presenting, I love working on Lorraine, I can’t really think of anywhere else I’m trying to kick the door down on yet.’
Not even reviving her obscure singing career? When I ask if she’s ever put her unreleased tune, which has been dubbed a banger by fans who heard it during the My Therapist Ghosted Me Live Show, she responds with two words: ‘Oh god.’
That will be a no.
‘I always wanted to be a pop star, I just was never good enough. I don’t actually love dancing or singing in public so I don’t really know where my desire came from but when I looked at Girls Aloud and Spice Girls, you’d always want to be in the Spice Girls. But no, I’ve no desire to that anymore.’
Her popstar ambitions may have faded, but she’s still selling out massive venues throughout the country with two separate tours – one with Joanne and one with her husband Spencer.
‘I never thought that I would do podcasts because it wasn’t really a thing four or five years ago and I love doing podcasts, it’s just so fun being able to translate that into stage work,’ she says.
‘It’s such a different thing to be doing and it’s so nice that like I could do it my husband and another with my best friend, but then off the back of that I’m doing a stage show which is something I never thought that I would be doing and I’m absolutely loving every minute of it.’
Spooked Ireland airs on Really and is available to catch up on discovery+.
