'Things Like This Don't Happen To People Like Me'

She’s funny, she’s smart – and chances are your partner’s a little bit in love with her. Cosmopolitan falls for the Emma Willis effect.

- Lottie Lumsden

During my 12-year career as an entertainment journalist, no celebrity has ever made me dinner. There was the time X Factor’s Leon Jackson made me a cup of tea with the electric kettle in his hotel room. And last summer I got a carton of Vita Coco round at Rita Ora’s house but, by and large, celebrities don’t do their own hospitality.

So, as Emma Willis pops a plate of homemade chilli con carne in front of me (“Do you want rice or a jacket potato on the side?”), I’m floored.

A long wooden table runs down the length of her open-plan kitchen and in the background there is the lovely tinkle of family life. Her mum potters about the kitchen, husband Matt is running around looking for his guitar strap, the children (there are three, all under seven years old) scamper underfoot and even Emma’s PT has joined us for dinner.

This is the end of an eight-hour day I’ve spent with Emma, one that began at 12 noon as she popped on her headphones and pre-recorded her Heart Sunday Morning Breakfast radio show with Stephen Mulhern. After that, we hot-footed it to the other side of town where there were voice-overs to be done for the new series of The Voice before heading to rural Hertfordshire, which the family have called home for the past two years. Once here, we did a workout in her garage. I even had a shower in her upstairs bathroom afterwards. That’s another first – celebrities don’t normally invite you to lather up either.