My heart stopped for 7 minutes giving birth to my ninth child - so Im spending 100k spoiling my

May 2022 · 6 minute read

REALITY TV star Irene Major will have more reason than ever to lavish gifts on her nine kids this Christmas - because her heart stopped for seven minutes when giving birth this year.

In an emotional interview the former Playboy model, nicknamed the Queen of Ingress Abbey, tells for the first time how lucky she is to be alive.

Irene, 44, invited us into the sprawling 14 bedroom Grade II listed pile she shares with her oil and gas tycoon husband Sam Malin, 60, on the outskirts of London.

The couple told how at Christmas they need two delivery vans to bring all the food, a day to unwrap the presents, have a limitless budget when shopping at Harrods - and that their eldest daughter once turned an Aston Martin.

But for Irene, the greatest gift this year will be seeing the look on her nine children's faces on Christmas morning.

She reveals: “It is beyond magical I think. Just the thought that, you know, I probably wouldn’t have spent this Christmas, I am here with so many people under my roof, it is everything.  

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“It is like when you lose a loved one you want them back again for a minute to say something right, and I am here and back and I am like, ‘Oh my god I can’t believe I am here'.”

Horror health scare

Irene suffered a blood clot after giving birth to Oscar in March in London's private Portland hospital.

The X-Factor contestant had to be rushed to the nearby NHS St Thomas’s hospital for life-saving care and spent two weeks in a coma.

Irene says: “I literally died in March. My heart stopped for seven minutes. I had a pulmonary embolism. I never told anybody.”

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This will be Oscar's first Christmas and she holds her bundle of festive joy tightly during our visit to historic Ingress Abbey in Greenhithe, Kent.

She thinks she might have had an out of body experience, speaking to deceased loved ones who told her it wasn’t her time to die.

Irene continues: “They tell me, ‘Go back, go back. Where are the kids? You need to be looking after the kids'.”

The mother-of-nine also suffered a stroke, but has recovered now.

Prior to the near-death experience, Cameroon-born Irene, who comes from a family of nine, had wanted to keep having more children.

But she now thinks nine is probably enough.

Judging by what the no holds barred couple have to organise at this time of year, that makes sense.

Although Irene does enjoy shopping for her brood - Samantha, 23, Lulu-Marie, 16, Pearl, 13, Lincoln, 12, Mona, eight, Noah, six, Mason, five, Jordan, three and Oscar, nine months.

She says: “They give me a hint about presents. And the hint sometimes is leading into Harrods.”

Limitless budget

She keeps Canadian Sam, who has moved into gold mining, out of the shop because if he’s there he'll get his calculator out to tot up the bill.

Irene says: “There is no budget. As long as the card works, I just go into the shop. Husband doesn’t follow me.  

“I shop alone. I go in, he just parks and waits by the car and I just fill it up. He says, ‘Darling are you happy?’ I am like, ‘Yes I am happy.’  He doesn't even care what I got.”

They also go to nearby Bluewater shopping centre, or order gifts online.

The children often receive the most up to date smartphones or laptops, which prove to be pricey.

Sam says: "The latest computers and of course the latest phones have a lot of additional costs.”

Aston Martin rejection

Irene reveals that when they took their eldest daughter Samantha to an Aston Martin showroom for her 16th birthday, she turned the idea down - and not simply because it would be another year before she could drive.

Sam smiles: “She said that she would accept a car when she was old enough and it would be fine to start with a Polo, thank you very much.”

But a couple of the other children have expressed a desire to own a Range Rover when they reach 17.

Irene enjoys wrapping the gifts herself, but in previous years they have received help from online retailer Amazon.

She recalls: “Do you remember that Christmas, oh my God we had a whole list here, 140 presents to get, and the only people who could have helped was Amazon. They were delivered all wrapped up.”

This year is sure to be more, thanks to the expanding brood.

But Irene says: “We don’t count them you see, we just buy them. Loads.”

A day of opening gifts

With nine children needing to unwrap piles of presents, it used to take a whole day to just see what everyone had got.

Sam says: “We used to do it so each child would open their presents, and the next child would open their presents, and then the next child, and eventually that was taking more than 24 hours, so now we open them in one go.”

Irene insists she is never ‘mum-shamed’ for splashing out on her family - and, perhaps understandably, she is welcomed into shops.

“When I walked in there right, like the other day, they are, ‘Hello, how are you today?’” she says.

They also give something back by running a charity that helps less fortunate families in Africa, with Irene visiting Madagascar to hand out mosquito nets.

Thankfully for Santa he has 16 chimneys to bring his sacks down at the 19th century mansion - although he needs to avoid the ones which are blocked up.

Sam smiles: “The children are worried because there are one or two rooms in the house where the fireplaces are blocked or behind walls in the evolution of the house, so we reckon the magic of Christmas will make sure he will come to where the stockings are.”  

Lavish surprises

The couple are equally extravagant when it comes to selecting surprises for each other.

Irene buys Sam Rolex watches and he once flew her to Paris on a private jet for a meal at his favourite restaurant.

Even the Christmas crackers laid out on the table for 12 people in the Abbey’s Red Room contain jewellery such as cufflinks or hairpins.

The food bill runs into thousands of pounds and they will need a couple of delivery vans to bring it all.

Sam reveals: “It would be a five-figure sum or something. It is a fair old bit.”

He adds: “Even the poor guy when they show up on a weekly delivery. Eye rolling. They ask, ‘How many people live here, is it really just one family?’"

And it is Irene who will be doing the cooking, with a little help.

“I am quite good at cooking and everybody likes to tuck in," she says. "My sisters always do that, the nannies do fantastic.”

To make matters more complicated, the Abbey will host more than one Christmas.

One of their nannies will bring eight guests and enjoy a “Filipino Christmas in the Orangery”.

Sam’s sister and her two children will be there, plus Irene’s mum, brother, sister, sister-in-law and three children.

The children help put up the decorations and lights, which is good because there are so many of them in the mansion, which the couple bought in 2012 for £1.6m and have spent another £3.4m doing up.

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There are five Christmas trees, including the 10ft tall one in the lavish Gold Room, where they will open the gifts.

Sam concludes: “We get to see each child, all nine of them, one after another learning about that joy.”

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