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Britpop party queen Meg Mathews on drugs, divorce and why she’s determined to break the taboo surrounding menopause
Within five minutes of sitting down with Meg Mathews, she’s talking about vaginal dryness and the wonders of lubricant as casually as if she were discussing last night’s Corrie.
Having been a menopause campaigner for the last two years, Meg doesn’t flinch at this stuff and rolls her eyes at the squeamishness over the language we use when it comes to female biology. “Let’s just say vagina!” she roars. “I’ve always been like that at home, we shouldn’t be embarrassed about our bodies.
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Periods! We all go through it and yet some women get embarrassed about buying Tampax. I ask women when they last looked at their vagina in the mirror, and they just don’t.”
After years of searching for “a purpose” post-marriage to Noel Gallagher, Meg has found her voice. She does a lot of public speaking on the menopause, has launched a range of products in Superdrug and her website had a million visitors in its first six months when it launched in 2017.
It was her own traumatic experience with the menopause and the lack of information and support that led to a determination to change things for the sake of her daughter Anaïs and the next generation.
“My whole life, whatever I’ve done – music industry, interiors, designing – this is the thing I feel most passionate about,” she says. “I wake up in the morning and I have a purpose. It’s often life and death and I don’t want my daughter or any of her next generation going through these things.”
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She’s absolutely bang on about life and death, and Meg’s campaigning is particularly pertinent at the moment, with reports showing a gender health gap that is having fatal consequences for women. All too often women’s health issues are dismissed or misdiagnosed.
According to the British Heart Foundation, two women a day are dying unnecessarily from heart attacks because they don’t receive the same standard of treatment as men.
And despite endometriosis affecting one in 10 UK women, often causing chronic pain and affecting their sex lives, fertility and mental health, it takes an average of 7.5 years to diagnose.
“Women are suffering and even dying because they’re not getting the right treatment,” says Meg. “Osteoporosis, heart attacks, strokes, collapsed pelvic floor – putting oestrogen back into the body can help all these things.”
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These are certainly feminist issues. Is she a feminist? “Well, I’m speaking up for women so I hope I’m a feminist, yes!”
Meg, 53, began the menopause at the age of 49 (she now believes she was perimenopausal for several years prior to this), but had no idea that’s what was affecting her ability to function. She visited her GP but was fobbed off with antidepressants, a tale she’s since learned is all too common.
“I spent three months with the most crippling mental health issues. I was overwhelmed by life. I had this fogginess, I kept forgetting things and I really thought something awful was going on. I lost my libido, I had aches and pains, severe headaches, dry mouth syndrome and dry eye syndrome.
Night sweats used to keep me up, my bed would be drenched. And the lack of sleep would leave me tired in the morning, which caused anxiety. Daily life became impossible. At one point I didn’t leave my house for three months. I told everyone I had glandular fever and was put on antidepressants.”
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It was a woman at an AA meeting who, after hearing Meg speak about her symptoms, suggested that it might be the menopause.
“No one had ever talked to me about the menopause. I’m quite a well-read woman, but there was nothing out there – I’d always just had this image of a granny with a walking stick! I knew it meant the end of your periods, but nothing about what went with it, and certainly not that it could last for years.”
Meg started researching and found out about NHS menopause clinics, where she was prescribed testosterone. She later returned to her GP armed with knowledge and fight and was prescribed hormone replacement therapy (HRT) – she uses oestrogen gel and takes a progesterone tablet every night and is now functioning “amazingly”.
She says: “There are 13 million women in the UK going through the menopause and a lot of them are suffering because they don’t know how to navigate the NHS. I went in again and again and all I came out with was antidepressants. It’s like when you’re in the hairdresser’s and they’re cutting too much off and you just sit there.
It’s the same with the doctor. He gave me antidepressants and I actually said: “Thank you.” Women often find it hard to speak up or challenge.”
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Meg speaks with passion and confidence. She’s a little scatty at times (endearingly so) but she’s a great talker, is friendly and fun and proves universally popular with the crew at our shoot.
“HR departments have a responsibility to make things easier for women in the workplace,” she says. “I’d like to see flexible working hours and quiet spaces. Women are using up their holidays to cope with the menopause and that’s not right. I do talks in businesses, in banks and I love teaching people about the realities.
“It’s my mission that all this gets changed within my lifetime. Hopefully, someone will read this in Fabulous and realise they’re not going mad.”
She’s been completely open with Anaïs, now 19 and an aspiring photographer currently at art college, and the two of them have done a Q&A on Meg’s website about living with a menopausal mum.
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“It was a bit too honest,” laughs Meg. “I asked her what it was like and she said: ‘You were horrible, Mum!’”
Anaïs is the polar opposite of Meg at the same age. She’s teetotal, for a start. “Maybe because she’s seen what it can do,” says Meg. “In my teens and 20s I just wanted to go to the pub and get smashed, but Anaïs doesn’t smoke, doesn’t drink and doesn’t party at all.”
She and Noel co-parented despite divorcing in 2001 (“Yes, but we don’t talk about each other in interviews”) and Meg says she’s proud of how Anaïs has turned out.
“I was a strict mum. She could easily have been spoiled and turned out to be a brat, but I’ve always told her manners are important and to look people in the eye.
“She never went through the terrible teenage phase – we’ve probably had three arguments her whole life. I’ve done a lot of work on myself. I’ve had a lot of therapy, which helps me understand myself better. If I feel angry, I take a step back.”
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Who is Anaïs most like? “She’s half and half. From me, she’s got her love of animals.”
And from Noel? Meg laughs and covers her face with her hands. “All the northern side of her. That’s all I can say!”
Meg never wanted more than one child, but she says that when the menopause took hold she experienced grief for the babies she could no longer have.
“When my periods stopped I was really upset. I only ever wanted one child, but when the choice was taken from me I thought: ‘Oh, maybe I did want another one.’
Of course I didn’t, but it was a really weird feeling that I definitely couldn’t have another even if I wanted one.”
When my periods stopped I was really upset. I only ever wanted one child, but when the choice was taken from me I thought: ‘Oh, maybe I did want another one.
Meg Mathews
There can’t be many people who partied their way through the ’90s with as much gusto as Meg. Married to one of the country’s biggest rock stars, BFFs with Kate and always at the heart of that cliquey north London in-crowd, she was the Queen of Cool Britannia, known for her hard drinking, wild nights out and love of designer labels.
But the Meg of today is virtually unrecognisable. The tousled bleached-blonde hair and distinctive throaty tones are still there, but she’s several years sober now, bright-eyed rather than bleary and looking younger than her years. And she’s more likely to be found meditating at a wellness retreat than stumbling out of the Met Bar (RIP).
“It’s two different people,” she says. “I’ve had to grow – if I hadn’t it would be a bit sad, wouldn’t it? I’ve learned things. In my 20s I didn’t have a clue.”
After years of excess, there was an inevitability, she says, about the eventual crash – the point at which she had to acknowledge she could no longer carry on with life as it was. That came “about 10 years ago” when Meg hit rock bottom and checked herself into rehab.
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“I was in my early 40s when I realised that partying wasn’t for me any more and I had to get myself into a better situation. You can’t go on living like that forever, staying up all night, not eating properly, drinking. I had some really great times and I don’t regret any of it, but there comes a time when enough is enough. I don’t want to be a 55 year old staggering about.”
She attends regular AA meetings – she heads to one straight from our shoot, in fact – and although she admits there have been a couple of blips in her recovery, she’s not touched a drop in three years.
“I don’t do anything now. I don’t smoke, take drugs, drink alcohol. I’ve had a little diversion here and there, but I always get back on the horse.”
Does she miss it? “Not at all. I don’t have alcohol in the house and I don’t give it a thought. I can’t just have one or two glasses of wine… going for ‘a couple of drinks’ isn’t in my vocabulary, so I might as well forget that. I’m all or nothing, that’s me. So I think it’s better that I just don’t have any.
The Last...
Book you read?
Billion Dollar Whale by Tom Wright and Bradley Hope. Really good.
Box set you watched?
The Politician with Gwyneth Paltrow. I did it in a weekend!
Movie you watched?
That Tom Cruise CIA film – American Made.
Time you cried?
In August on the anniversary of my mum’s death.
Kiss you had?
My dog Ziggy!
WhatsApp you received?
“Florence was good, bit intense”. I’m not saying who that was from.
Time you lost your temper?
When I read my messages about how women are treated.
“I don’t want to wake up feeling groggy. I want to wake up feeling clear.”
Was Anaïs the main reason Meg decided to get help? “She’s the most important thing in my life and of course I had to turn things around for her. I’d do anything for her.”
She might not have any regrets, but Meg looks back on the four years married to Noel (they were together for seven in total) and the aftermath of their split with some hurt.
During peak Oasis and the height of the media fascination with the shenanigans of the Primrose Hill set, she was one of the most written about women in Britain. But Meg found the constant scrutiny difficult.
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“I had a f**king hard time for a good seven years. It made me very sad. People saw this woman who was married to Noel, shopping and drinking, but no one knew the real me. And I wasn’t just married to Noel – I had a career! I’d been working in the music industry long before I met him.
And the divorce was so public. I had photographers following me and it was horrific for a long time. I was left with an eight-month-old baby. I went to stay in Norfolk with my parents for a while but they followed me there.”
Meg, who had never changed her surname (“Meg Gallagher sounded like an old granny!”), eventually downsized to live more frugally, moving to a smaller house and ditching the designer clothes. “It terrifies me now thinking about what I used to spend. I’ve done enough shopping to last a lifetime,” she confides.
She says she’s relaxed about ageing but does have Botox sporadically. She’s given up on fillers and had her breast implants removed three years ago.
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“I started to look like a pillow face, so I’ve not had fillers for about five years. I’ve seen pictures of myself and I don’t look good. Getting rid of my boobs was the best thing I ever did. Within about four days my water retention went, I felt less angry and dropped about two dress sizes. Boob jobs are so ’90s, when everyone wanted to be Pamela Anderson.”
She’s started dating someone new, but says it’s “very early days” and doesn’t want to reveal his name. They met through mutual friends – Meg says the kind of relationship she’s looking for has changed as she’s got older.
“When you’re in your 20s and 30s it’s about sex and ripping each other’s clothes off. Now I want a soulmate, the whole package. I need to feel comfort and trust and have someone to talk to and laugh with. I lost my desire for a while but I’ve met someone who gave me that excitement I hadn’t had in a long time.
“I’ve been on dating websites – I actually had quite a long relationship from Tinder – and I always tell them I’m menopausal. It doesn’t get in the way, although taking your clothes off when completely sober can be tough!
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“But I’ve got ‘that’ feeling again, so it’s a case of watch this space. It’s all well and good having the feeling, but being in a relationship is another matter, isn’t it?”
She’s dated younger men in the past but isn’t looking for a toyboy.
“I like big, rugged older men, a man’s man. I don’t want to go out clubbing with loud music. The thought of going to a nightclub makes me feel physically sick!”
Would she get married again?
“I’m not anti-marriage – I’ve been engaged three times since Noel! I’m a Pisces, I’m a romantic.”
She squirms at the suggestion she should write a book. It’s not just her life that would be laid bare, she says, it’s also everyone else’s and the lives of their kids, so it wouldn’t be fair. The party might be over but the friendships with Kate Moss and Sadie Frost have endured.
MOST READ IN FABULOUS
“We’re still going! We prefer a healthier lifestyle these days. A lot of friends back then weren’t real. I mean, how many people did I used to say hello to in one night? I never really knew them. I can count my best friends on one hand. As you get older, you let the bulls**t pass and you know who your true friends are. I know who I can pick up the phone to and say: ‘Please come now’.”
There’s been lots of soul-searching in recent years. “I’ve learned to talk and think things through before I do anything. I used to be impulsive and fall out with people but now I sleep on it first. Then it’s no longer a big deal. Turn around three times and start the day again.
“I feel more comfortable in my skin now than ever. I really feel that five years into the menopause, I finally feel confident and empowered.”
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Three women describe how they coped reaching menopause - as its revealed a third of women need day off to deal with ‘The Change’
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