Prized Apart host Emma Willis: 'Finally, something my kids can watch!'

Big Brother host Emma Willis will be co-hosting a brand new all-action Saturday night gameshow Prized Apart with Reggie Yates on BBC1 on Saturday. We caught up with the Big Brother presenter to talk about the new series…

What can you tell us about the new show?

"Ten ordinary British people will leave their families and head to Morocco to compete in a range of adrenaline-fuelled challenges. Each week the bottom placed contestants will fly back to Britain, but they’re not necessarily going home!"

What happens next?

"The two contestants are brought to a studio where a partner or friend will be waiting. The stay-at-home players have a chance to keep their loved ones in the race for £100,000 by answering a set of questions. The stay-at-home winner that wins the head-to-head quiz will put their teammate back on the plane to continue the game!"

Are you looking forward to working with Reggie?

"I love working with Reggie, but I was jealous when he was sent out on an action-packed trip to Morocco! He got to watch the contestants do crazy stunts like swinging across canyons and racing through the desert, whereas I got the tension in the studio."

If you two were a team on the series, who would do the adventure stunts and who would be left in the studio?

"We’d fight it out to do the adventure stuff because we’re both terrible at general knowledge. I think he’d try and make me stay in the studio – he’s pretty buff. But I’m just itching to do all those things the contestants did out in Morocco."

Are you a bit of an adrenaline junky?

"I used to be fearless when I was young but now I have kids I have to make sure I hold back a bit. I’m always worried about what might go wrong!"

What are the contestants on the show like?

"They were fantastic. The best thing was that they were all really normal people who would never usually dream of doing stuff like this. We had a grandma on one team, but she didn’t want to stay in the studio – she couldn’t wait to get to Morocco and throw herself off a waterfall!"

Did the contestants in Morocco have any contact with their partners and friends back in Britain?

"They had no contact with each other for the whole of the series, which was very hard. One married couple had never spent a night apart since they were married so they found it really tough."

Will you be watching the show with your kids on Saturday night?

"Yes, it’s the perfect family show so we’ll all settle down on the sofa to watch. It’ll be great for my children to watch one of my programmes because I’d certainly never let them watch Big Brother!"

Prized Apart begins on Saturday 13 June on BBC1 at 7pm

Sean Marland

Sean is a Senior Feature writer for TV Times, What's On TV and TV & Satellite Week, who also writes for whattowatch.com. He's been covering the world of TV for over 15 years and in that time he's been lucky enough to interview stars like Ian McKellen, Tom Hardy and Kate Winslet. His favourite shows are I'm Alan Partridge, The Wire, People Just Do Nothing and Succession and in his spare time he enjoys drinking tea, doing crosswords and watching football.