UGUST20 8 01 2 T S U G AU Emma Willis ON FIGHTING IMPOSTER SYNDROME AND HER NEW PLAN B

5 SEXTIPS By Caitlin Moran D E R

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lood and guts and bodies The Brit Awards alongside her Sunday radio show with are what I like,’ says Emma Stephen Mulhern for Heart FM. People connect with her, ‘ Willis, plunging her teeth into whether she’s bouncing with excitement outside the Big a posh chicken burger. ‘It’s Brother House or making a new mum her first round of what I thought I would do. tea and toast, she seems genuine in whatever she does. Both my parents worked in I got a taste of this myself on our cover shoot in hospitals and I grew up in an Portugal. Emma arrived to discover rain had been forecast environment where you did for the following shoot day. As her entourage started to jobs like that.’ She pauses for arrange themselves on to sunloungers by the pool, I a moment, then adds, ‘And tentatively suggested we try to squeeze the six-hour cover Bthen I found myself being a shoot into whatever sunshine we had left that afternoon model, which was a bit weird.’ instead. Despite having been up since 4am already, not We’re sitting in the restaurant of a fancy Holborn hotel, seeing any of the clothes we’d hoped she’d wear, nor and Willis, all crystal blue eyes and jauntily angled quiff, shaving her legs or slathering on any fake tan yet (it was is explaining her latest project – Emma Willis: Delivering March), Willis said yes immediately. She wore the bikini Babies. Today is her one day off in between the 13-hour bottoms she wasn’t 100% sure about and ran through the shifts she’s currently working – and filming – at the freezing waves with a huge grin on her face until the sun Princess Alexandra Hospital in Essex, where she’s signed finally disappeared. The pictures – I hope you agree – are up for a 12-week stint as a maternity care assistant. To say gorgeous. It’s as if we’d planned it, but it wouldn’t have she’s enjoying it is an understatement. ‘Honestly, it’s one happened if she hadn’t been an utter trooper. To top it of the best things I’ve ever done. I love it,’ she enthuses. off, the following week she sent a text asking us not to ‘I always thought I’d work in a hospital, in the A&E side airbrush her bottom, because even though she doesn’t love of things, but the minute I had a child I just had this it, she feels it’s important for people to see the real her. incredible amount of respect for midwives. You’re at your From that moment, I knew she was one of the good ones. most vulnerable when you give birth, you lose all dignity At 42, Willis has joined the handful of primetime and it’s such a precious thing you do with your body – and TV hosts – Davina McCall, Fearne Cotton, Claudia they guide you through it all. It’s all down to them.’ Winkleman, Holly Willoughby – who seem to land all Three weeks in, she’s spent more time changing the plum gigs. Yet she still seems surprised to be here. bedsheets than watching babies being born, ‘I always worry that there’s not going to be another job,’ but she doesn’t seem to mind. ‘I can’t tell you how many beds I’ve cleaned and made! And the ‘I STILL HAVE IMPOSTER other day a woman had given birth in the birthing suite, in the SYNDROME NOW. I STILL THINK pool, and it was my job to clean up afterwards…’ she trails off. SOMEONE IS GOING TO RUMBLE ME’ ‘But that side of things is just as important. Midwives look after the babies and maternity she admits. ‘My little period of doing well is going to care assistants look after the mothers.’ Has she seen any dwindle. I’m a very positive person, but I’m a realist, actual babies being born yet? ‘Yes! But it took three weeks too. So far, I always seem to fall into something – I’m to find a woman who didn’t mind being filmed. The first not a planner, but that might bite me on the arse one day.’ was a home birth, a hypnobirthing mum, having her third I suggest that the slow-and-steady career plan may not child. She had really bad back pain, so it was my job to have been intentional, but it’s definitely working for her. rub her back. And when that baby came out I was a mess. ‘It’s been a natural progression, but maybe that’s because I cried more than the baby did!’ She wells up again. I wasn’t hugely confident in myself in the beginning,’ she , ZIMMERMANN ‘If it all went tits up, I’d happily just do this instead.’ admits, revealing the transition from model to presenter The thing is, I can’t really see it all going tits up for only really felt validated when she started presenting Big £250 Emma Willis, because the reason she makes such a good Brother’s Bit On The Side in 2011. ‘I loved the show and maternity care assistant is the same reason she makes such knew the show and it was something I was passionate a good TV presenter – she’s so bloody lovely. It’s her about. I may not have been the most technical presenter, superpower, really; the secret of her success. It’s also but at least I knew what I was talking about, and that gave , GANNI. JEANS,

the reason she’s been in the public eye for the last 25 me more confidence. I still have imposter syndrome £150 years, as a teen model (her first job was the cover of Shout now, though. I still think someone is going to rumble me. magazine with Red’s fashion director-at-large, Nicola Only when I get asked back for another series do I know Rose!), then as a presenter on CD:UK, I’m A Celebrity… I’ve done a good job. I’m always terrified for the first series Get Me Out Of Here! Now!, Big Brother, The Voice and of anything – I was asked to do This Morning recently and CENTRE: JUMPER,

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I shit my pants again! I can do the cookery, but when it’s the Willis’s youngest daughter, Trixie, is still in nappies, serious subjects I feel like an imposter.’ I ask if she has any but I wonder if all this time spent on Princess Alexandra’s advice on how to overcome this, after all, she must have labour ward is making her consider adding to their family picked up some tricks along the way. ‘Just smile and wing again. She nods. ‘Every baby I see makes me broody, it,’ she suggests. ‘I feel like I’m winging it all the time!’ but then I see the pain the mums are in, how hard the Despite her protests, I think Willis thrives on the breastfeeding is, the latching on, and then I remember the uncertainty – never knowing what will come next, reality.’ She says she almost didn’t have a third child, but accepting new jobs that challenge her. This comes through family tradition sort of made it inevitable. ‘I was copying in her 10-year marriage to Busted singer Matt Willis, too. my mum. She had my sister at 40 and she was her third. I ‘We’re not planners,’ she reveals. ‘We never sit down to be always thought if I had a third, maybe I’d do it when I was deep and meaningful and think about where we’re going. 40. Then I got to 40 and felt like I had a little bit of time Is that bad? We’ve been lucky because it’s all fallen in the to myself again, we were sleeping, I’d got my body back to right way – we’ve never both been busy at the same time, normal for the first time in years… but then I thought it’s so we’ve managed to make it work and have a family, too.’ now or never. I didn’t want to look back and regret it.’ When she talks about Matt, her face lights up, and it’s Our conversation keeps circling back to Willis’s mum, clear to see she’s still mad about him. She calls him her Kath. The obvious matriarch of the family – they refer ‘absolute favourite person to hang out with’, and when to her as ‘King Kath’ – she’s also the person Willis calls I ask her how their relationship has changed during a for advice, no matter what. ‘My mum should have been decade of marriage, she answers, ‘We’ve seen each other a counsellor, she’s just savvy, very good at having a level at our best and conversely at our worst, and that gives head and seeing things from different points of view.’ As any relationship more meaning.’ Matt’s rehabilitation well as travelling down from Birmingham to London to for alcohol and marijuana addiction in 2005 has been look after the children on a weekly basis, Willis’s mother well-documented, but when I ask how that period has has become something of a partner in crime to Matt. On shaped their marriage or whether it impacts them now, she their annual family holiday – last year’s was Tenerife says she’d prefer not to talk about it publicly any more. – the duo devised a card game, where the person who Instead, she notes the most significant thing about their pulls the lowest number from the pack has to think up relationship is how much has actually remained the same a dare for the other one. They started with silly forfeits, these past 10 years. ‘I still fancy him to bits and he makes which eventually escalated to Matt having a crown and me laugh. I suppose the best way I can describe it is that he is home to me. Does that make sense? When I’m with him I ‘I STILL FANCY MATT TO BITS. feel like I’m home, wherever we are.’ Romance aside, Willis clearly rules the WHEN I’M WITH HIM, I FEEL LIKE roost at their north London home. Matt is seven years her junior and she quips that I’M HOME, WHEREVER WE ARE’ he’s ‘the other child’ (they have three . FIONA BOOKINGS: ANDREWS

) children together, Isabelle, eight, Ace, six, and Trixie, the words ‘King Kath’ tattooed on to his calf. Willis can YUE RDCIN PENNY AT PRODUCTION: EYLURE. SHOOT PORTUGAL.

& two). She says, ‘I set the rules and tell the kids off if they’re barely contain her delight when she retells this story, being naughty – and he’s the cheeky child who gets into calling them ‘batshit crazy’, then scrolling through her their world and plays along with them. If they want to have phone to find photo evidence. It’s clearly her idea of fun and run around having crazy adventures, they go to heaven – her two favourite people in cahoots, doing FAZENDANOVA.EU ( him. If they’re tired or sad or have fallen over and hurt something mad and spontaneous just for the thrill of it. their knee, they come to me. I’m really good at making Willis’s world looks pretty wonderful from the outside. our family organised and keeping on top of things. Matt Just before I go, I ask if it’s as good from the inside, too. has this wonderfully creative brain and mine is more She nods fiercely. ‘I feel like I know myself, who I am, what practical.’ I ask if their relationship revolves more around I’m doing – what I’m good at and what I’m not good at.’ UP: AMANDA BOWEN USING SUQQU

- the everyday minutiae of family life, or if they try to So, what are those things? bring the creativity of their jobs home, too. Willis admits ‘I’m good at being a mum, at being realistic. I’m a it’s the former, saying, ‘Once the kids are in bed, I want very good wife to Matt, I know how to keep him under to sit down and be comfortable in silence together. Matt control, not let his head turn. I’m good at my job, I’m listens to podcasts, he reads books, he’s always trying a good friend. I’m bad at self-belief, at making decisions new things and trying to educate himself. Maybe one – like picking a restaurant, I’m bad at throwing things day when all my kids are at school I’ll start doing that, away. Most of all, I’m bad at sitting still.’ , AS ASSISTANT:GABRIELLA OF CITIZENS STYLIST’S BOTTOMS, WILLIAMS. BEFORE. ART PHILIPPA HUMANITY.BIKINI DIRECTION: too. But right now, they’re my priority. Do I want to I know how she feels, but I’m not sure this is a time in £280 sit down and read a book or do I want to talk about her life when Emma Willis truly needs to sit still. As the SHIRT, HAIR:MINCHELLA. LOUIS BYRNE. MAKE OAIN THANKS TO HOUSE NOVA COUNTRY LOCATION: FAZENDA my kids? I want to talk about my kids.’ headline says, she’s walking on sunshine. Long may it last.

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