Emma Willis has admitted she still feels like an imposter after 25 years in television, despite fronting some of the UK's biggest shows including Strictly Come Dancing, The Voice and Cooking With The Stars.
The 50-year-old presenter, who grew up in a working-class family in Birmingham, said she feels she never belonged in TV and has carried "working class guilt" throughout her career.
A lifelong struggle with self-doubt
Speaking about her insecurities, Willis said: "I felt like an imposter my whole f*cking life. It's odd for me to talk about - for me, it's a very, very personal thing... I feel like a massive impostor in everything I do."
She added: "You can have all these massive insecurities inside, on the outside everyone's like: 'She's got it together. Look at her, she's flying,' but inside you're like: 'Oh, my God, I shouldn't be here, I don't belong…'"
Willis, who is one of the new Strictly hosts this year alongside Josh Widdicombe and Johannes Radebe, said there is a "big old taboo" around insecurity in the industry.
From Birmingham to prime-time TV
Willis began her career as a model at 17 before moving into TV presenting roles at MTV. She explained that dreaming big was difficult given her upbringing.
"I feel like I never belonged in TV because - in the community where I grew up - I grew up in a very working-class family. There was no career path for jobs like fashion, or TV, or film, or music, or whatever," she said.
"Because it was: 'We need to get a job and have some financial security so, hopefully, one day, we can buy a house.' Those jobs were jobs my family did, working in the NHS, working as driver for British Gas, which my dad did."
She added: "I didn't see people around me, or people I knew who went: 'I want to be a TV presenter or I want to go into TV production or be a film director,' that was just not part of our world."
Finding confidence after five decades
Willis, who has been married to Busted star Matt Willis for 18 years and lives in Hertfordshire with their three children Isabelle, 17, Ace, 14, and Trixie, 10, said she has become more comfortable in herself over the past five years.
"When I started in television, I just wanted to be part of the gang. And I would work as hard as I could to fit in and be accepted. But what I've realised the past five years, when I've become much more comfortable with myself - age massively helps that - you stop worrying about what people think of you," she said.
"Not because you don't care - I still am a chronic people pleaser - but because you just stop second guessing yourself, you have now had time behind the wheel, and you're still doing that thing you never thought you were able to do all those years ago. I still have massive wobbles."
Willis was speaking at The Outsider's Perspective event, where she discussed her journey and the importance of acknowledging insecurity rather than hiding it.
