Matt Goss may have ditched the ripped jeans and peroxide hair, but as soon as he walks in the room, you know you’re with pop royalty. There is no ignoring the former Bros frontman’s famous cheekbones and piercing blue eyes. In the late 1980s, the now 56-year-old became a pin-up for throngs of teenage girls, when he starred in the band with twin brother Luke (on drums) and Craig Logan (on bass), as the Mirror reports.
They sat down with OK! magazine as he works on tracks for a new album and prepares to shoot a movie with Stephen Dorff. Matt is also planning a tour that will include many of Bros’s big hits, such as When Will I Be Famous? Matt was eager to talk about music, but he also opened up about his love life, the losses that have shaped him and some pretty crazy fan encounters in an exclusive interview.
“I’ve been touring my whole life, I love it,” he says when we ask about his upcoming tour, Matt Goss:The Hits & More , which kicks off in March. “This time, I wanted to do a show of all the hits. Every single song you’ll know. I just want people to dust off their gladrags and have a really fun night out.”
Matt is now based in London, but spent 17 years in LA – 12 with his own live show in Vegas, which he admits was “terrifying” at first. “I was scared. Everyone said Vegas is a tough nut to crack. But I did it,” he says. He’d previously performed in front of almost 80,000 adoring fans when Bros played at Wembley Stadium in 1989. “Those experiences become a part of your DNA,” he says.
Behind the scenes, Matt is loved-up with model turned jewellery designer Chantal Brown, who he’s been dating for three years. He lights up when she’s mentioned and says, “She’s kind, funny – she says life with me is like flying by the seat of your pants. She always has to be make-up ready!” There have been engagement rumours, so does Matt think Chantal could make a married man of one of the most eligible bachelors in pop? “Absolutely, I do,” he says. “I love her, isn’t that what it’s all about?”
As for his admirers, many of whom have matured alongside the singer, it seems they’ve become more demanding over time. “Once upon a time, female fans wanted a hug and a kiss,” he says. “Now, they want everything! It’s a… sexier place. When you’re older, you know exactly what you want. My older fans do – and it’s not just a hug and a kiss any more!”
But that doesn’t mean there weren’t over-enthusiastic fans back in the day. Once, while on tour, one hid under his hotel bed. “Yeah, they grabbed my ankles and let’s just say, I did not react in a cool way. I screamed my head off and shot off my bed,” he admits.
On another occasion, Matt went into the bathroom of his hotel room and found a naked woman standing in the shower. “When I told my mates, they laughed and asked, ‘Did you have a good time?’ I was like, ‘No! This person’s been waiting in the shower anywhere between two and five hours to meet me. That’s not someone I want to be getting involved with!’” Matt seems unfazed, but adds, “I’ll still check the shower and under the bed on tour.”
Of course, fame can have a darker side, and Matt was recently faced with someone posing as him online. He says the Met Police were “brilliant” and the catfish has been arrested, but admits the whole affair left a bitter taste in his mouth. “I’m sympathetic to the person who was duped, but it started to make them very angry, then they began to show up at places I frequent,” he explains. “At one point, it was a restaurant near my house.”
Matt was introduced to a whole new audience when he competed on Strictly Come Dancing with Nadiya Bychkova in 2022, although he famously had mixed experiences on the show. Would he consider doing another big primetime show – the jungle perhaps? “I would genuinely go to a jungle and hide out there to avoid doing a show like I’m A Celebrity ,” he laughs. “I’m too shy to do all those things.”
However, he assures us he’s a lot of fun. “I have a good laugh and I like a good time, but it doesn’t mean I can be ‘that guy’ all the time. Sometimes I feel crushed by self-consciousness, sometimes I feel like a king. But a show like that would strip me down in all the wrong places, I think.”
Matt has rubbed shoulders over the years with many other icons, including boxing great Muhammad Ali and Princess Diana. “She knew how to make you blush,” he recalls. “She had such a light. She told us she was following our career. I was doing promo in Germany when she died. I cancelled it and came home. I was devastated.”
Tragically, Matt has also experienced loss closer to home. The darkest moment of his life, he tells us, was when his sister Carolyn was killed in a collision with a drunk driver in 1988, when Bros were at the height of their fame. And he lost his mother to breast cancer in 2014, having cared for her himself in her final days.
“My mum and sister not being here leaves me feeling orphaned. Those losses had a huge impact,” he says. “Carolyn had such a generous spirit and heart. Maybe she was taken because she was so ahead of the game. She was such an emotionally intelligent woman.”
Although he doesn’t address their estrangement directly, Matt seems to be referring to his twin when he talks about how relationships sometimes break down in life. “You turn yourself inside out to try to find solutions. But if I can look in the mirror and say I’ve done everything I could, that’s enough. That philosophy has saved me. You can’t make people love you.”
Has he found peace? “Yes, but our time here is finite. Before my mother died, the last thing she said was, ‘Please surround yourself with people that can see your heart.’ And sometimes, that’s not family. But I’ve got my wing-men.”
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