Rivals star Emily Atack: 'Becoming a mum can be quite a lonely thing'
Rivals actress Emily Atack and her fiance Alistair Garner welcomed Barney into the world in June 2024.
Emily Atack thinks motherhood can be "lonely".
The Rivals star and her 39-year-old fiance, Alistair Garner, welcomed Barney into the world in June 2024, and Emily regrets not bonding with other parents because of her shyness.
She told the new issue of Closer magazine: "Becoming a mum can be quite a lonely thing. I didn't go to all the mum and baby groups, as I'm quite shy. People don't believe me, and they laugh at me when I say that."
Emily, 36, started filming series two of Disney+'s Rivals - based on the late Dame Jilly Cooper's 1988 raunchy novel of the same name - 11 months after she gave birth to Barney, and she is going into series three feeling like a new person.
Emily - who plays Sarah Stratton - said: "I've got a child, I've got a mortgage ... I'm a grown-up now! This has come at a perfect time for me, personally, in my life."
In February, Emily revealed that some people quizzed her on her weight rather than congratulating her and Alistair on becoming parents.
Appearing on an episode of Jamie Laing's Great Company podcast, the Inbetweeners alum said: "There’s something quite liberating about having a baby.
"Your body goes through so much, and you genuinely look at your body as a completely different vessel.
"Being pregnant and being desexualised, looking at your body, you create a human inside you, then you give birth to your child – which by the way is mental – you get home, and the first thing people say to you is, 'When are you going to get back in the gym?'
"Are you kidding? I’ve just created a human, I am exhausted! I’ve just tried to push a human out of me and had it ripped out of my stomach.
"The last thing I want to do is go to the gym, but the first thing you’re expected to do is get back into shape. Where’s the congratulations for being a mother?
"Instead, it’s when are you going to get the baby weight off… I’m not back at the gym at the minute, I’ve actually put on more weight since giving birth. I’m just enjoying this bit."
Emily first announced her pregnancy, via an Instagram post, in December 2024.
She wrote: "I've never been so happy and utterly terrified at the same time.
"Every day is mixed with thrill, fear, joy, hysteria, topped off with a lot of vomiting - a bit like when you've just stepped off of the Oblivion at Alton Towers on a hangover.
"I've got to know my body on such an insane level. It's made me appreciate the one I've been given so much, I'm doing my absolute best to make it a home for the little squid I'm growing.
"We can already sense the baby is reclined on a mattress of peanut butter and jam sandwiches in there, demanding more chocolate buttons.
"I'm so happy to be writing all of this to you all. You've always stuck by me through the years - do stick around to watch me enter my mum era."
