Emma Willis hosted last night’s Team GB Homecoming on BBC
Emma Willis has described the way her husband Matt Willis proposed to her as “mortifyingly embarrassing” after his initial plan was foiled by Busted fans. The band’s bassist Matt, 41, married TV presenter Emma in 2008.
The couple regularly work together, including hosting Cunard’s Queen Anne naming ceremony in Liverpool earlier this year, and can be seen on Love Is Blind UK. Emma hosted last night’s Team GB Homecoming on BBC alongside Vernon Kay, as the UK’s Olympic stars were welcomed home from Paris.
Team GB surpassed their triumph in the Tokyo games as they won 14 gold, 22 silver and 29 bronze medals. Woolton-born star, Katarina Johnson-Thompson was one of the athletes that contributed to the haul with an incredible performance in the heptathlon to take the silver medal.
Away from the screen, Emma and Matt have three children and live in Hertfordshire. Speaking on the Newlyweds podcast, Matt recalled how he took Emma to Venice, Italy for her birthday – which is when he proposed.
He had planned to ask her in a restaurant, but after hearing English Busted fans on another table, he ended up asking her to marry him on the Rialto Bridge, which he had “never heard of”. Former Big Brother presenter Emma said there were “loads of people around” when her husband proposed, which she said she found “mortifying”.
The Busted star said of his proposal: “When I proposed, she was devastated, deadly embarrassed, so embarrassed. I took her away to Venice for a birthday, I had organised this restaurant, which is really nice, and I was going to propose at the table in front of everyone.
“It’s in Venice, no-one will be English. (We) sit down and there’s a table full of English people there. I hear someone singing a Busted song at one point, and I’m like this is going to go terribly wrong. I was like ‘right this isn’t going to work, so what do I do now?’
“So then we had to walk around Venice trying to find somewhere to propose, and that’s not my vibe. I don’t know where I’m going.”
Emma, added: “We had dinner and he was really weird, he suddenly turned before we even went to dinner, he didn’t really talk to me, he was a bit twitchy. And I was like, this is really f***** up, if he’s brought me here to finish with me, do you know what I mean? And I thought it’s either that, which he’s not that kind of person, so please god no, or he’s going to f***** propose.
“So I was trying to be an investigator, and I was trying to hold his hand, and rubbing his legs, (to see) if I could feel anything in his pocket, but he used to have a asthma inhaler. And I was like, I think that’s his asthma, and then he was like, let’s go for a walk down here.
“I’m walking around getting lost in Venice, I’m like what are we doing? And then we literally stumble across the Rialto Bridge, Matt’s never heard of it, didn’t know anything.
“So we walked to the top of it, and he just got all serious, and I’m like what are you doing? “(He) whipped out this box and he started to drop, and I just grabbed him around the neck.
“I went, don’t you f****** dare. I think I said, go down there, because there’s loads of people around and they’re all going to look at us and oh my god how embarrassing. But not like don’t propose, just how mortifyingly embarrassing, and then he opened the box, and the ring had flopped out of the little holder. I think if you’re not stereotypically romantic staring into each other’s I mean, he stares at me all the time, and I’m like what the f*** are you looking at? That was our proposal.”
In the podcast, Emma also says she was not a fan of her husband’s band when the pair met, but said his songs had now become “an integral part of the beginning of our relationship”. She said she is now “the biggest Busted fan” due to the “great memories” their songs have brought her.