Emily Atack is currently starring in Disney+ bonkbuster Rivals, but says she’d fed up with the facade of fame while making a revealing Holly Willoughby comparison
Emily Atack might be best-known for being bitten on the hand by a snake in I’m A Celeb, or starring as Charlotte in the iconic TV series The Inbetweeners, but now she’s setting screens alight in the TV bonkbuster, Rivals.
Her racy role as Sarah Stratton in the adaptation of Jilly Cooper book features the cream of British acting, including Danny Dyer, Aidan Turner and David Tennant. And it has seen her popularity soar, with critics praising a talent for comedy. The show is now back for a second season, beginning last night (Friday) on Disney+.
Emily’s star is certainly rising – in early 2026 she ‘broke the internet’ as the face of an Agent Provocateur campaign and has also reportedly landed a £100,000 deal to front a campaign for Marks & Spencer, following in the footsteps of stars including Holly Willoughby.
READ MORE: Rivals boss says cast were ‘shocked’ by Jilly Cooper’s sad death ahead of season 2READ MORE: Holly Willoughby ‘set for TV comeback’ with ‘really exciting’ project
So perhaps it’s no surprise that Holly Willoughby isn’t far from Emily’s mind – the former This Morning star also presented the series of I’m A Celeb that Emily appeared in – when she talks about the facade of fame, insisting that celebrities should show a more “authentic side of themselves”.
The 36-year-old actress appeared at an event in North London alongside her friend Radio 1 DJ Greg James last month, to mark the paperback release of his memoir, All The Best For The Future, saying that people in the public eye should follow her lead and be more open with their fans.
She said: “If you’re in the public eye and you’ve got a platform, people want to hear from you. There’s this ridiculous idea that as a celebrity you’ve got to be squeaky clean and do a ‘Holly Willoughby‘. But if you’ve had a s**t morning, people want to hear from you.”
The TV star added that people are too preoccupied with being strait-laced. She said, “Slagging people off is really fun because gossip is a tribal thing, it’s how people connect because we love gossiping. We love to say, ‘Oh my God’ and we connect around the things that we don’t like.”
In June 2024, Emily welcomed her first child, a son named Barney, with her partner Alistair Garner. But she opened up about the realities of motherhood and joked that early mornings are a struggle – a far cry from the glossy routines often shared online. Talking to Greg about how he gets up early to entertain millions on his breakfast show, she said, “I can’t even get up for my toddler. I am like, ‘No.’”
It’s not just her daily life that keeps her grounded. The actress revealed that she still prefers spending time with her old school friends.
She said, “I’ve got mates from school and we go to each other’s houses. We are polar opposites in every single way, but we remember those times where we sat in assembly and we p***d our pants laughing and got sent out. That kind of giggling and laughing – that kind of nostalgia, you can’t get that from everybody. Why is it we feel as adults that we have to create these circles of influence where we’re all doing the same thing? I don’t want to do that. I want to see my school friends and get back to laughing and being young.”
Emily also recalled being starstruck, after seeing TV favourite Anthea Turner at work – a moment that sparked her love of television.
She revealed that she visited the set of The National Lottery Live with her mother, actress Kate Robbins. “My mum had to drag me into work one day because she was doing something with the National Lottery,” she said. “I remember seeing Anthea Turner – she had this fabulous blonde blow dry and smelt of really lovely perfume. I followed her around all day – she had people doing her make-up, she was all glamorous and I was like, ‘I want to be Anthea Turner.’”
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