Born on July 8th 1965, Matthew grew up in Croydon. Educated at John Fisher Catholic school in Purley, Surrey, his classmates included the DJ Giles Peterson and sculptor Diarmuid Bryon O’Connor. After some time spent exploring the free festival scene and even more time spent writhing about in tights with the other drama-ramas at Exeter University, Matthew began a career in newspapers.
He spent 10 years working with Piers Morgan, first at the Sun and later at The Daily Mirror where Matthew had a daily column for five years. After “working with” Martine McCutcheon on her best-selling autobiography Who Does She Think She Is, and co-launching the teen web portal mykindaplace.com, Matthew moved into TV.
His daily debate show The Wright Stuff has been running since 2000 and has become one of Channel 5’s most successful commissions. Guests, everyone from Tony Blair to Irvine Welch, get to discuss the day’s news and a range of other social issues with Matthew. The serious stuff is taken seriously, everything else is ripe for good-natured but witty debate!
Viewers of BBC1 will know Matthew from the weekly factual strand Inside Out which he has presented for nearly a decade. He also launched and presented Radio 2’s Friday night arts slot, scored 14 on his specialist subject Frank Zappa on Mastermind, had some kind words from Anne Robinson on the Weakest Link, enjoyed a pointless appearance on Pointless….you get the picture.
Despite all the worthy, brainy stuff Matthew’s done on tv and radio he will probably remain best known for eating ostrich cock with Joey Essex on I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here – a trial watched by more than 13m people, the highest rated tv moment of 2013 after Andy Murray’s historic Wimbledon win. He’ll always be remembered for that or for twatting about in a white bikini. Well, why should girls get all the fun?
In February 2014 he presented The Big Benefits Row on Channel 5, pulling in their second biggest audience of the year of over 2 million viewers, eclipsing the final of Channel 4’s The Jump. Rumours abound that Matthew might present more evening discussion shows for the channel. Watch this space…