Emily Atack is just as saucy as Holly Willoughby and has made Celebrity Juice even boozier, says Keith Lemon

EMILY Atack is just as saucy as Holly Willoughby and has made Celebrity Juice even boozier, according to Keith Lemon.

The hilarious host insists 30-year-old actress Emily has encouraged stars to party hard on the ITV2 show as she made herself at home as the new Team Captain.

She’s one half of the brand new series’ epic line-up, starring opposite Love Island host Laura Whitmore.

“I’m a lucky man, aren’t I,” Keith told The Sun.

“I sent pictures to my friends saying this is the new line for the captains and I got a lot of expletives sent to me in return, calling me a ‘lucky f***ing b*****d’.”

But when pushed on whether Emily is as wild as her predecessor Holly “Willabooby”, Keith can’t choose between them.

“They’re all my mates,” he said.

“We’ve known each other for years. The three of us didn’t realise how far back we go, we’ve worked together a lot before. 

“I like the idea that we can become a solid three and do more things in the future. We’ve created a little tight gang already, it’s nice. We filmed something on location, which was kind of like our bonding.”

The trio have already wrapped three episodes ahead of the series return on Thursday, October 22.

But it won’t be like anything viewers have seen before - with coronavirus precautions banning stars from their usual wild antics. 

While Holly and previous show captain Fearne Cotton were previously filmed “necking on” - much to the delight of Keith - stars are forbidden from touching in the new series.

Show bosses have also slashed the number of people in the audience and insisted they wear face masks.

But new arrival Emily won’t let that stop her having fun on set as she enjoys getting drunk with pal Keith.

“When does it ever not get boozy?” laughed Keith.

“I’ll say ‘Emily are you having a drink tonight?’ And she’ll say ‘Yeah always’. 

“Celebrity Juice is a party and that’s the weirdest thing about this series, is that the audience is only made up of 46 people with microphones, when you watch it on telly you won’t notice the difference but I notice the difference.

“It’s normally like a stag or a hen do Celeb Juice – the audience are nuts in a good way.

“I feel bad for the girls [Emily and Laura] that they’re not getting 100 per cent Juice experience.”

Although he insists ITV2 viewers won’t notice the difference, Keith admits he had to make sure he gave his full attention to celebrity guests who were missing the audience interaction.

He said: “With the panel, I sort of interact more. When they do different set-ups I’m talking more and messing around, but now I’m conscious of keeping the guests entertained as there is no audience to give them any love, so I guess I give them a lot of love. 

“The audience are lovely but they’ve got masks on – you can’t see if they’re smiling. 

“But I can’t complain. There are some people who can’t do their programmes for some reasons but I feel so lucky.”

Celebrities set to star in the upcoming series include Gemma Collins, Jimmy Carr, Roman Kemp and Maya Jama.

And even though Keith promises viewers a bang tidy new series - he insists Celebrity Juice 2021 will be even more outrageous with extra snogging and wild behaviour to (hopefully) celebrate the COVID vaccine.

He added: “This time around we are all two meters apart – the desks are so long that we worked out that it would cost £3 in an Uber to get from Emily’s desk to Laura’s desk. I’ve still got my desk but they’re desk is like trains.

“You’ve got to be sensible about it, but hopefully a vaccine will happen before the end of this year and by the time next year’s Celeb Juice we’ll all be snogging.”

Celebrity Juice starts on 22nd October, 10pm on ITV2