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Vivian "Viv" Nicholson ( née Asprey; 3 April 1936 – 11 April 2015) was a British woman who became famous when she told the media that she would "spend, spend, spend" after her husband Keith won Pound sterling152,319 () on the in 1961.Bulent Yusuf "What Happened Next?" The Observer, 6 July 2003 Nicholson became the subject of tabloid news stories for many years because of the couple's subsequent rapid spending of their fortune and her later chaotic life.
She became pregnant at age 16 and married Matthew Johnson, but left him to marry her neighbour, Keith Nicholson, two years later. By 1961, she had four children.
After Keith died after crashing his Jaguar Cars on 30 October 1965, Viv's fortune rapidly dwindled to nothing; banks and tax creditors deemed her bankrupt and declared that all the money, and everything that she had acquired with it, belonged not to her but to Keith's estate.
In 1968, Nicholson won a three-year legal battle to gain £34,000 from her husband's estate,Sheena Hastings "Spend spend spend Viv Nicholson: Older and wiser now", Yorkshire Post, 22 August 2008. but rapidly lost it all by more uncontrolled spending, as well as by taxes, legal fees, unpaid bills and bad investments.
Nicholson's alcoholism became serious during her wealthy years but continued for many years after she had lost all of her money. She eventually achieved sobriety.
She made many unsuccessful attempts to regain both her public profile and her lost wealth, such as recording a song (titled "Spend Spend Spend", written by her brother) and appearing in a strip club singing "Big Spender." After opening a short-lived boutique, she ended up penniless, and by 1976 claimed that she could not even afford to bury her fourth husband (they had broken up three years earlier) when he died.
In 1978, Nicholson co-wrote an autobiography with Stephen Smith titled Spend, Spend, Spend that was dramatised for the BBC's Play for Today series by Jack Rosenthal. Spend, Spend, Spend (1977) was directed by John Goldschmidt (who won a BAFTA award for the filmed play) and stars Susan Littler and John Duttine.
Nicholson died at Pinderfields Hospital, Wakefield at age 79 on 11 April 2015 after having a stroke and suffering from dementia.
In her autobiography, guitarist Viv Albertine of The Slits says that their song "Spend, Spend, Spend" by was inspired by Viv Nicholson.
A successful musical based on Nicholson's life called Spend Spend Spend debuted in 1998 and subsequently ran in the West End.Jonathon Green "She had it all - and spent it", The Guardian, 9 October 1999.
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