How Spencer Matthews's move from supershagger to woke-bro bankrupted Made in Chelsea

Reality shows live and die by their villains. The Hills might have been about beige-personified Lauren Conrad, but it was Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt who gave us the show’s best moment (“YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID!”). Without Mark Wright dropping his trousers for anyone called Lauren, Lucy or Samantha, The Only Way Is Essex would just have been a carousel of cosmetically enhanced club promoters and beauticians asking each other: “All right? Yeah, I’m all right, are you all right?” Jersey Shore split bad-guy duties between Ronnie – who cheated on girlfriend Sammi, trashed the Shore house and punched clubbers – and the Situation, a juiced-up snake in sunglasses who’d lie, trick and then snivel when his manipulations were discovered. So how could Made in Chelsea get it so wrong with handsome super-shagger Spencer Matthews?

Spencer was an incredible villain because he was so charming. Seemingly intelligent women – Lucy Watson, Louise Thompson, Steph Pratt – fell over themselves to date him and were somehow shocked when he betrayed them. He spent two whole series competing with Andy for Louise, only to cheat on her when he finally started dating her. He casually admitted to taking part in an orgy while at a garden party. He was on the receiving end of Chelsea’s all-time most memorable scene, The Slap, when Millie Mackintosh cracked him in the face for sleeping with his ex, Funda, behind Louise’s back. Spencer even laughed as everyone – pissed-off girlfriends, love rivals, even mates – chucked drinks in his face for his bad behaviour.

But it all started falling apart in series five when the show took structured reality to extremes and filmed Spencer’s (fake) therapy sessions. Spencer, who had cruised through all previous episodes wearing the smirk of a man who has a rich dad and knows that qualities such as manners, loyalty and integrity are things only commoners need concern themselves with, poured out his heart to a concerned middle-aged woman, and we were supposed to buy it. “I’ve changed!” he claimed. “I can sleep in my bed alone now,” he added. This, from the man who once told his weeping girlfriend: “It’s fucking hard to respect you when you allow me to cheat on you.” And by “allow” he meant she’d believed his lies about not sleeping with other women, the idiot. Why would Spencer suddenly become humble, reflective and regret his (probably quite fun) actions? Did his dry-cleaning bill run too high? Did he catch an ice cube in the eye after getting hit by a flying G&T? Or was the show just running out of storylines?

Two years later, a clearly bored Spencer quit the show and viewers were left with a rotating cast of poshos called Binky, Toff and at least 12 people called Sam. It’s now on series 15 and everyone in the cast is mid-level nice, AKA dull and too scared of losing Instagram followers to do anything interesting. Spencer Matthews is now basically a royal (his brother is married to Pippa Middleton) and he’s engaged with a baby on the way. The worst thing? Only one drink has been thrown in the whole series.