'I was always just “not quite right”. I didn’t know why, no one could ever explain it': How Emma Willis became the hottest host on primetime TV
She was the ex-MTV presenter with the model looks and pop-star husband but never the top job. Not any more. Now Emma Willis is Miss Saturday Night, hosting The Voice, Celebrity Big Brother – and the BBC’s new big-budget show. No wonder she’s having to fend off Simon Cowell...
‘I remember at one point offering to dye my hair blonde because I thought that might make the difference, and people just shook their heads,' said Emma Willis on being sidelined by the TV industry that now covets her
Sitting on a sofa in a London club, television’s latest It Girl, Emma Willis, is trying to figure out where it all went so right.
The 39-year-old is at the top of every TV boss’s wish list, a sure-fire Saturday-night ratings winner.
And on the back of a triumphant year fronting Celebrity Big Brother and The Voice, she’s landed the hottest new show on TV – the BBC’s big-money weekend blockbuster, Prized Apart.
What’s more, she got Dermot O’Leary’s vote as the person to take over from him as X Factor host, and his old boss is a fan, too: ‘Love Emma Willis. Great girl,’ Simon Cowell has said. But not even TV’s Mr Big is able to prise her away from the BBC to front The X Factor.
Blessed with stunning looks, and a pair of pins to die for (Tom Jones described her legs as the ‘best I’ve ever seen’), the former model has left a string of spurned suitors in her wake, including Justin Timberlake and Robbie Williams; she’s been married to a pop star – McBusted’s Matt Willis – since 2008.
It hasn’t been an easy ride to the top. Hipper than Tess Daly, more down-to-earth than Claudia Winkleman, and less excitable than Davina McCall, two years ago Willis was nevertheless more the ‘Not Quite Good Enough Girl’ than the ‘Golden Girl’, sidelined by the same industry that now covets her.
That she toughed it out is down to an unerring ability to cope with setbacks, drawing on the struggles of her early days in the cut-throat world of modelling and the twin traumas of watching her husband’s pop career in his first band, Busted, collapse at the age of 22, before he succumbed to alcoholism.
‘I don’t think people realise how long I’ve been around, doing bits and pieces. I was always just “not quite right”.
'I didn’t know why, no one could ever explain it, which then just makes you completely lose your confidence because you start to think, “It’s because I’m just c***.”
'I remember at one point offering to dye my hair blonde because I thought that might make the difference, and people just shook their heads.’
'I don’t think people realise how long I’ve been around, doing bits and pieces. I was always just “not quite right”.'I didn’t know why, no one could ever explain it,' said Emma
She shakes her own head and laughs: ‘I’ve spent so many years wondering where it was all going wrong, and now it’s going well and I have absolutely no idea why. All I think now is, “How long is this going to last?”’
It is this typical lack of pretence that underscores her appeal. Men like her for it – as well as for her unmistakable beauty – but women respect that she underplays her attractiveness.
You’ll never see her flashing her cleavage, and there are strict rules governing those killer legs in public.
‘I won’t wear anything very short. I don’t do that thing,’ she says. ‘I’ll often get a lot of stick from guys on social media for what I wear because I’ll go for something ultra-modern like a Victoria Beckham-style A-line dress or a cape. But I get great comments from girls.
'My main thing is being comfortable and looking like myself. But to be honest, what I wear is pretty much the last thing I think about.
'The main thing going through my head when I step out onto any show is: “Don’t mess it up, Emma, don’t mess it up.”’
I first met Willis ten years ago when she was hosting MTV’s Backstage Live.
A few days earlier, a smitten Robbie Williams told me she was the one girl who had persistently turned him down since his Take That days: ‘When you’re in a band you always want to get off with an MTV girl. They’re always better-looking and cooler than everyone else,’ he said.
‘And Emma Griffiths [as she was then known] is the peach.’
Justin Timberlake’s initial advances were rebuffed with the words, ‘You’re not as good-looking in the flesh, are you?’ sparking a year-long chase (he finally gave up after she turned down an invitation to his after-Brits party in favour of Duran Duran).
Film star Stephen Dorff had more luck, dating Willis for a brief period after she moved to New York in her late teens to star in a campaign for Gap.
'My main thing is being comfortable and looking like myself. But to be honest, what I wear is pretty much the last thing I think about,' said Emma
She told me during that first interview that after her years as a model she had developed a ‘radar for good guys’, and then went on to explain why she had instead fallen for a washed-up pop star from a very uncool band with a drink problem who was eight years younger than her. His name was Matt Willis.
She laughs at the memory.
‘I think I surprised myself. I remember going home to my mum and dad’s with this 21-year-old guy with tattoos everywhere and a blue Mohican and not quite explaining what was going on because I wasn’t quite sure myself.
'We were there for a couple of hours and Matt was just chatting away.
'My mum thought he was great and from the start both of them were really supportive.’
‘It wasn’t straightforward,’ she says of her husband’s meltdown, which was triggered by the demise of his band Busted in 2005 and having to deal with music magazines revelling in their downfall.
‘It wasn’t like he went into rehab and that was it. It took time and I understood it was going to be like that. He had a lot of problems. But you don’t walk away from someone because they have problems.
'You have to see who they are underneath all that, and I could see who Matt was. I could see this decent, funny bloke just struggling, and I was going to be there.’
'I could see this decent, funny bloke just struggling,' said Emma on her husband Matt
Ten years on, Matt has been through rehab, turned his career around, starred in EastEnders and Birds Of A Feather and won a new army of fans with the McFly/Busted collaboration McBusted, currently on a sell-out UK tour and supporting One Direction.
The couple have two children, Isabelle, six, and three-year-old Ace. And while Matt still sports madly coloured hair and tattoos, they are a distinctly committed and rather conventional couple.
‘Matt will walk in with leopard-print hair or green hair and Isabelle will look up and say, “I like that colour” or “I don’t like that colour, Dad.” They don’t think much about it. She knows he’s a singer and she loves his music but she loves One Direction and has met them because McBusted are supporting them – that was a big deal.
‘But generally we’re pretty low-key. Matt or I do the school run every day.
'My kids have watched me on The Voice but they’ve never seen me on Big Brother because I’d never let them watch that show – it’s not at all suitable for kids. I don’t think we’re necessarily strict but we do have rules.
'We’ve stopped Isabelle listening to Katy Perry’s Hot N Cold because it’s got the word “bitch” in it. We’re not that rock ’n’ roll and she’s just too young.’
As a child Willis wanted to be a nurse, like her mother, but at 15 she was spotted by a Birmingham model agency and at 17 was cherry-picked by Models One (the agency that launched the careers of Twiggy, Marie Helvin, Linda Evangelista and Erin O’Connor).
She travelled down to London on a coach with parents Cathy and Steve (who worked as a postman), her gran, her elder sister Sharon and her younger sister, Rebecca.
‘It was like a scene from that comedy, Bread. My family do everything together so they all came with me to the agency.
'I was told I’d be taken on if I cut all my hair off and dyed it dark brown [she is naturally mouse-blonde].
'The plan was that I’d move into the agency flat with three other girls and see what happened.
‘I wanted to do it, mainly because I was really into the boy band Bros and I knew Bros lived in London,’ she laughs. ‘But my family couldn’t afford it so it wasn’t going to happen.’
Her great aunt then cashed in a bond she’d bought for her at birth and with the £1,000 she moved to London.
Before long she was off to New York where her career blossomed, but within a few years she was spotted by MTV and discovered she was far happier presenting than modelling.
Modelling, she says, knocked any vanity out of her.
‘You are surrounded by girls prettier, taller, thinner than you all the time.’
She was, like many models, often ordered to lose weight.
‘That did happen to me but I never took any notice. At one point I was living with a chef and I’d just go home and eat loads.
'I don’t believe in telling girls to mess with their bodies. Be healthy, be happy, be a decent person, enjoy yourself – that’s more important.’
'For a long time I used to wonder why other women would get jobs and I just wouldn’t,' said Emma (pictured with Sarah Harding on MTV)
The truth is, after she left MTV eight years ago to try and make it as a mainstream presenter, Willis was just too good-looking and a tad too cool to work on family TV shows.
What changed was the fact that she became a mother, grew up and served her time on TV extra shows and guest-presenting, from This Morning to I’m A Celebrity... to The Paul O’Grady Show and Loose Women.
‘I do remember getting asked to present ITV2’s I’m A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here Now! with Matt after he’d been in the jungle in 2006 and won it, and telling him I’d only got the job because of him.
'I’m very bad at being negative and paranoid. He’s very good at telling me not to be an idiot and just get on with it.
‘But there were women around who really helped me [during that period] too.
'About six or eight years ago I thought I should just give up, I met [This Morning presenter] Ruth Langsford. She had a long chat with me and told me to stick with it, and then gave me her number to call her.
'Davina McCall was also really great, and I remember getting a job on This Morning with Ruth and Eamonn Holmes, who by then I thought of as my TV aunt and uncle. They were a big part of me sticking with it because I really lost any belief in myself for a very long time.’
Her close friends include Fearne Cotton and Ellie Goulding (who is dating McBusted’s Dougie Poynter), along with friends from Birmingham’s John Willmott School, where Cat Deeley also attended.
‘She was a few years above me and I don’t know her so well but I know her husband, Patrick Kielty, because we’ve worked together.’
Ask her if there is rivalry among female TV presenters and she smiles.
‘I was really delighted when Tess and Claudia got Strictly together because I think it was great that two women finally got to present a massive show.
‘I don’t know them particularly well and for a long time I used to wonder why other women would get jobs and I just wouldn’t.’
I’ve spent so many years wondering where it was all going wrong, and now it’s going well and I have absolutely no idea why. All I think now is, “How long is this going to last?”,' said Emma (pictured hosting The Voice)
Willis is not easily pigeon-holed. Like McCall, who coincidentally used to work as a booker where Willis was a model, she likes to prove her mettle physically with the sort of stunts Ant and Dec would run a mile from.
Her new TV show Prized Apart sees ten pairs of contestants split between the UK and a series of foreign locations.
One half of each team will face a series of ultimate adventure challenges and the other half will compete in a general knowledge quiz in order to keep their partner in the game.
‘I was completely hooked when the producers pitched the show to me,’ says Willis, who will host the show from the UK while co-host Reggie Yates reports on the foreign contestants.
‘I love anything to do with that relationship between two people, whether it’s a husband and wife, a brother and sister or two mates.
'And I love really extreme physical challenges. I’ve done a few myself. I love doing things that scare me. People don’t think this is me at all but I get a massive buzz from doing something really dangerous.’
She continues: ‘One of the best things I ever did on telly was doing Jack Osbourne’s Adrenaline Junkie show.
'At one point I was strapped to a sheer rock face after climbing half-way up, which was 5,000m. I was with Jack and Craig David. We had to sleep on a thin stretcher nailed to the cliff edge. It was terrifying, but what was worse was attempting to go to the loo.
'I was the only female in an all-male crew and I was told to shift to the edge of my stretcher and do my business off the edge. There was no way I could do that. The wind was ripping through us all night and with the stretchers moving constantly, none of us slept.’
She has yet to figure out herself why her career has gone from lukewarm to red hot in the space of just two years.
‘It could be to do with having kids, it could be to do with getting older and a bit more confident, but I think I spent so long trying to work out what I was doing wrong and never entirely knew, so it’s pointless trying to work it out.
'All I want to do is go for it, enjoy it and make the most of it because I’m under absolutely no illusions that anything lasts forever – and I’ll just try not to mess anything up.’
‘Prized Apart’ starts on BBC1 and BBC1 HD on Saturday June 13
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