LIV Nervo thought she had found the man of her dreams when she met Matthew Pringle during a holiday on Richard Branson’s private island in 2016.
Thoughtful, kind, and willing to fly thousands of miles to spend time with her, Liv, an Australian DJ, thought they were made for each other.
Liv pictured with her ex- boyfriend Matthew Pringle Credit: Supplied
Liv is a Grammy award-winning DJ Credit: Getty
Within weeks, their whirlwind romance became increasingly intense. Matthew, a millionaire business tycoon from New Zealand, had even visited Liv’s home in Australia, where he quickly became a beloved member of the family.
Two years later, the pair were eager to start a family. So much so that Matthew would jet off to see Liv, now 44, the moment her fertility tracker told her it was the right time to conceive.
When she fell pregnant, Liv, a Grammy award-winning DJ who helped write hits for Kylie Minogue, the Pussycat Dolls and Kelly Rowland, was excited and ready to settle in London to give birth to her daughter.
But six months into her pregnancy, Liv’s world came crashing down when she made a devastating discovery. Her boyfriend and potential future husband was lying to her in the most unimaginable way.
Matthew, whose mother is multimillionaire Lynette Ercegone, one of the richest women in New Zealand, had a whole other secret family with another woman, who was pregnant at the same time as Liv.
Not only that, he had yet another girlfriend, during the period he was juggling his relationship with Liv and his secret family.
“It was an out of body experience,” Liv, now 44, told The Jattvibe ahead of Channel 4’s Love Cheats, which documents her case.
“I thought I was in a committed, monogamous, loving relationship with someone I wanted to have a child with.”
Liv discovered Matthew had been cheating on her while she was six months pregnant with his child Credit: Supplied
Liv and her sister Mim are part of a musical duo called Nervo Credit: Getty
The realisation that her relationship had been a lie shocked Liv to her core. Not only did she have to cope with the emotional aftermath, but she would soon find herself embroiled in a series of bitter legal battles which have now cost her more than £500,000.
Liv, who co-wrote David Guetta’s hit When Love Takes Over, believes she was tricked into pregnancy. “I made all my reproductive choices off a lie, a very sophisticated deception that lasted years and involved many people,” she said.
After a period of staying “silent”, Liv began campaigning for stronger legal protections to protect victims of “reproductive coercion” – when someone loses autonomy over their reproductive choices.
Earlier this year, Labour MP Natalie Fleet led a debate in parliament arguing that Matthew had “used the court and legal system to silence, intimidate and isolate her and their child”.
Reproductive coercion is already against the law, but Britain has never seen a successful prosecution.
Court papers revealed Matthew made admissions of “domestic abuse”, while a judge called his behaviour as “reprehensible”.
However, the court declined to make any findings as to whether reproductive coercion had occurred in Liv’s case.
Matthew offered Liv a luxury home and a £20million trust fund for the baby but negotiations failed.
She hopes that speaking out about the issue will raise awareness and help see perpetrators prosecuted for coercing people into having babies without full knowledge of their situation.
The couple first locked eyes in 2016 while staying on Branson’s Necker Island while Liv and her sister Mim – who form a double act named Nervo – were performing a gig.
Romance blossomed and they soon began sharing a house in Ibiza. It was there that Liv discovered she was pregnant in 2018, much to the delight of both.
But by the end of that year, things began to fall apart. Matthew had arranged to come to Australia to spend Christmas with Liv and her family but he never showed up.
At this stage, devastated by Matthew’s no-show, Liv considered aborting the baby. Liv said: “It really freaked me out and it was the first time I considered an abortion.”
She decided to fly out to New Zealand to meet Matthew and confront him. He took her to his office because, he told Liv, he had a busy day of meetings.
The truth was, one of his two secret girlfriends was due to have a baby that very day.
“I was in his office and opened the patio door to see this girl wandering around the car park below. I could see her lips going ‘who are you?’ I mouthed back ‘I’m Liv, Matthew’s girlfriend.’
“She started shouting and I could half hear her saying, ‘he’s having a baby with my sister and he’s meant to be at the hospital now.
“I lifted up my shirt and showed her my belly.”
Liv followed Matthew to the hospital where she unravelled the full truth of his deception: that he had a second partner who was meant to be giving birth that day, and another girlfriend – but they are no longer together.
After confronting Matthew, Liv claims he apologised profusely and said he knew she wouldn’t have wanted to continue the pregnancy had she known about his double life.
Liv said: “He’s very good at saying sorry but not letting your child know about her siblings is not what sorry is.”
Liv only learned about the existence of the second secret girlfriend, now ex, when she snatched Matthew’s phone from him.
“I grabbed his phone and the last person to call him was this woman so I copied the number and I sent it to our WhatsApp group chat. So that’s how I got her number.”
Liv now does have a relationship with this woman, who was with Matthew for six years, and who Liv refers to as “woman two” for privacy reasons.
“When I found out about woman two, that was sort of comforting… It was important for me to know that it was serial and not the simplified version of what he was telling me at the time.”
However, she does not have contact with the woman who was pregnant by Matthew at the same time as Liv.
Liv later flew home to London, where she gave birth in 2019.
The traumatic event has lost her friends, jeopardised family relationships and even taken a toll on her fanbase. Her daughter has also been subjected to bullying at school.
After making the discovery, Liv found many of her friends at the time “too triggering” to be around.
“They would ask ‘is this still going on?’ and they don’t realise how painful those comments are because it’s not still going on because I want it to; it’s still going because I’m in an abusive situation.”
Liv fell head over heels for Matthew Credit: Supplied
The pair met on Richard Branson’s idyllic Necker Island Credit: Splash News
It even led her to “clear out” several of those close to her.
Because Matthew had been so involved with Liv’s family, many of her relationships with those closest to her also suffered.
Liv’s twin sister, Mim, has stood by her side throughout the ordeal, supporting her in raising her child and helping her navigate the mind-boggling family court system.
But Liv’s trauma has had a huge impact on all those around her. Mim recalled feeling “tension” with her sister in the lead- up to the painful discovery.
Mim said: “Because of our education on how fantastic people are at manipulating, I now believe in the last six months of Liv and Matt’s relationship, mine and Liv’s relationship had gone downhill, and that’s textbook coercive control.
“The isolation and stonewalling of Liv was so strong.”
At one stage, Liv even found it almost unbearable to speak to her grandmother – who had grown incredibly close to Matthew and was shell-shocked by his lies.
During their relationship, Matthew would fly thousands of miles to Melbourne, where her grandmother lived. There, he would send loved-up videos delivering cakes and spending time with her.
“I thought, I’ve got the best, most beautiful boyfriend visiting our grandmother while we were in Europe,” she said.
“My grandmother and I are very close and it really affected our relationship because she was so sad for me, and I was so sad seeing her so sad, so there was a good year where I couldn’t even speak to her because I would just be a wreck.”
Although seven years have passed since she made the life-changing discovery, Liv is still forced to face the painful reality of her deception – raising her child alone.
Her daughter has only met Matthew on a handful of occasions and is often asked by classmates why her dad isn’t around.
“She has been bullied at school because kids are asking her why she doesn’t have a dad,” Mim explained.
“Before she had even met her father, she’d been making up lies to her friends that her dad lived next door and that she did see him. Another day she said he was dead. She does this all herself, making up excuses.”
While Liv can’t “escape the harm that’s caused” by Matthew, she is a devoted mother committed to raising her child without stigma and shame.
“She’s a beautiful child who didn’t have any say in it and shouldn’t have to be hidden, and we shouldn’t slink away in shame because of this man’s actions.”
“She knows she’s loved; she is my North Star,” she said. “I was silent for a long time, and then I felt the silencing was harmful for my little girl and the silencing created isolation, which has motivated me to speak out.”
“I don’t regret having my child . . . but I do grieve and feel bad about the fact she was born into this situation. Being a single mum has been really hard.”
The sisters’ careers have been impacted too. After years of gruelling legal battles, the two have become experts on family courts, which, they admitted, has “alienated” them from their network and even their fans.
“Most of our fans are young boys who want to rave and listen to dance music. They don’t want to listen to women’s rights, so we’ve lost so much.”
Liv and Mim, who still tour all over the world, also feel the effects on their safety as her campaigning has made her a target of trolls.
“We can’t say where we are in real time because people follow us. We can’t say which hotel we’re staying at or when we’re there because of cybersecurity. We’ve had people following us down the street, putting cameras in our faces.
“We live in a perpetual state of fear of what the next attack is.
“It derails your life. Not just yours but everyone who loves you. They see it, as much as you try to mask it. You’re a different person,” she said.
In 2022, Matthew brought proceedings against Liv, in an attempt to gain more control over their daughter’s life.
Last year, he appealed a ruling that stated he should pay 75 per cent of Liv’s court costs, which exceed half a million pounds. He won the appeal and she was forced to pay.
The Jattvibe approached Matthew Pringle for comment.
Love Cheats airs on Channel 4 on Jattvibeday and Monday, at 9pm
