Voyager Vogue on RTÉ getaway while Mairéad on leave
VOGUE Williams’s star continues to soar in RTÉ with the broadcaster moving to sign up the model for a prestigious presenting spot on travel series Getaways.
The popular show, which is normally fronted by Mairéad Ronan, is currently mid-way through filming and will be broadcast on RTÉ 1 and the BBC in the new year.
Far from letting pregnancy slow her down, soon-to-be mother-of-two Mairéad took on the travel show gig, succeeding Angela Scanlon, who had quit to focus on her career in Britain.
Although a heavily pregnant Mairéad, 35, flew to Iceland and America to film part of the series, she will be unable to complete the production as she gets ready to welcome a new baby with her husband Louis, 30.
However, the MoS can reveal that RTÉ has drafted in Vogue to film the last two destinations of the series, while the Today FM producer gives birth.
‘Vogue is currently getting ready to head to Cyprus and will also film a holiday in the Algarve,’ a well-placed source revealed. ‘She is the perfect person to fill in for Mairéad, who has filmed the bulk of the new series.
‘This is very much a temporary thing and Mairéad Ronan is still the host, but it was great to have the opportunity to have someone of Vogue’s draw and calibre to take part in the series. I think she will help us reach a different audience and her bubbly personality will resonate with viewers.’
Vogue is the latest in a line of rising Irish stars to helm the series, which is a co-production between RTÉ and the BBC and is co-hosted by Joe Lindsay.
Angela Scanlon is also co-hosting BBC show Robot Wars, alongside Dara Ó Briain, as well as being a film presenter on BBC1’s The One Show. While Scanlon has focused on her work in Britain, Vogue has become a rising star in RTÉ. She will also front a four-part cutting edge documentary series for RTÉ 2, which is due to air in November. Her fly-on-the-wall-style shows will look at the issue of drugs legalisation in Ireland, as well as the problems facing the transgender community. The move into TV is fitting for the model, considering that she first came to national attention through another TV programme, Fade Street. The 2010 programme followed the lives of a group of Dubliners in their 20s, including Vogue, who is from Howth. Before her participation on the show, Vogue earned a degree in construction design and quantitative surveying, but she instead pursued her interest in DJing and also worked as a model. Following Fade Street, she began dating former Westlife member Brian McFadden, whom she met in a Donegal club in 2011. They got married in Italy in September 2012 in a lavish ceremony and sold the rights to Hello! magazine. Vogue’s profile began to rise in Australia, where she moved to be with McFadden, who was based there at the time. She appeared in Dancing With The Stars and, in 2013, she and McFadden took part in ITV dancing competition Stepping Out. In February 2015, Vogue took part in ITV reality series Bear Grylls: Mission Survive and won – after infamously drinking her own urine and then throwing up.
The same year, she and McFadden bought a house in Dublin – but that July, the couple separated.
An RTÉ spokesperson said: ‘We can confirm that Mairéad Ronan will present four episodes and Vogue Williams will present two episodes of the upcoming six part series of Getaways.
‘We wish Mairéad all the best ahead of the imminent birth of her new baby and look forward to working with Vogue.’