Emily Atack's bumpy path to fame: Actress was pasted on the cover of lads' mags at 17 - before taking aim at misogyny in her 30s (but she's still stripping off on her own terms!)

Emily Atack has revealed how she 'genuinely had no problems' with appearing nearly naked on lads' mags like Loaded and FHM as she saw it as 'celebrating my youth and my sexuality'.

But the 34-year-old British actress has admitted that she 'naively didn't think what narrative was being painted for me', and is now 'really standing firm' against misogyny.

Speaking to The Guardian , the mother-of-one revealed how her life-changing role as Charlotte 'Big Jugs' Hinchcliffe in The Inbetweeners meant she was suddenly getting recognised everywhere and booked for plenty of risqué photoshoots.

'This is where I get confused. And I was confused then,' admitted Emily. 'I was told, "You've got a photoshoot today" and it would be for Loaded magazine, or for FHM... So I was all, "Yep, clothes off, bikini on. Whatever." Genuinely, I had no problems with that - I enjoyed those shoots.

'I was celebrating my youth and my sexuality in beautiful locations, wearing gorgeous underwear... and I f****** loved it. It was great. I naively didn't think what narrative was being painted for me.'

Unfortunately, she soon became a target for a torrent of online abuse which included fat-shaming and cyber flashing.

But to those people who have suggested the actress should've seen that coming, Emily insisted she didn't show herself off in an 'overtly sexual way' and was instead simply promoting her work.

After The Inbetweeners, 13 films (including Get Lucky and Outside Bet) followed, where Emily played similar 'totty' roles.

Despite the mainly British movies often promising that it would chart the course to Hollywood for the actress, Emily recalled how one brutal meeting in LA ended with her being told she had to become a UK size six to be considered for any future role.

But in 2018 her career improved significantly once again after she appeared on I'm a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here! and won second place behind Harry Redknapp - a TV comedy series, called The Emily Atack Show, and a one-woman standup show followed.

However, the actress revealed how still had to deal with trolls and critics who claimed women couldn't be amusing.

Following her experiences, Emily, who welcomed her first child, son Barney, in June with her boyfriend Alistair Garner, is now 'really standing firm in saying there is a massive issue here: misogyny isn't going anywhere'.

However, that's not going to stop the mother-of-one from 'getting her kit off' anytime soon - with the actress recently insisting that playing a promiscuous role does not undermine her campaigning to end violence against women.

The actress portrays Sarah Stratton in Disney+ series Rivals, which has been dubbed the streaming service's 'sexiest show yet'.

In one scene from the adaptation based on Dame Jilly Cooper's best selling novels, Emily stripped naked along with her co-star while playing tennis in the garden.

But in a new interview, the star has reassured that playing a character that uses sex as a way of getting ahead does not deplete her message at all, as she insists 'it shouldn't matter'.

She told The Mirror : 'I know lots of people will say, "Hang on a minute. One minute she's talking about violence against women, the next minute she's getting her kit off in a show. That doesn't correlate", but what I'm trying to show is that it should not matter at all.'

Rivals is based on Jilly's 1988 novel, and follows the cutthroat world of independent television in 1986.

It focuses on the tense rivalry between Rupert Campbell-Black (Alex Hassell) and Lord Tony Baddingham (David Tennant) and stars Emily as Sarah Stratton, who is described as ambitious and not afraid to use her looks to get to the top.

According to Disney+, Rivals is a 'joyously mischievous rollercoaster ride, steamy in its love stories and packed with larger-than-life characters.'

The streaming service continues that it brings a '2020s lens to the 1980s', offering a 'raw exploration of a complicated moment in British history when class, race, sex, wealth, and sexual liberation meant that, for the very privileged few, there were no limits to what they could achieve'.

Emily previously explored the alarming rise in online sexual harassment for BBC2 documentary Emily Atack: Asking For It after experiencing repeated daily abuse across her Instagram and TikTok accounts.

The TV star said one of her regular online abusers is a married father who frequently creates fake accounts in order to send her sexually explicit messages.

She previously explained her motivation for campaigning for tougher laws concerning harassment and the impact it has on her and her family's mental health.

In her BBC documentary (2023), Emily explained: 'Every morning when I wake up, I see a man's penis I haven't asked to see.'

In another scene, the former Inbetweeners actress was seen in her kitchen, scrolling through her phone, as she counted the number of messages she'd received.

'This morning, I've had... Does, I want to see your t**s count?... 37. This man sends me pictures of him doing handstands all the time,' she said.

'Eight o'clock this morning, this lovely, big, veiny penis there. That actually did put me off my scrambled eggs to be fair,' Emily added.

Several sexually explicit messages Emily received online appeared on screen as she said: 'It's the ultimate disrespect. It's the ultimate thing of going, "I think you're easy access and you're up for it."

'It was in lockdown when things got really, really bad. I felt sick knowing what I was about to see. And I started to put up these messages on my Instagram.

'I wanted to know how many other people were receiving them. It made me realise it's happening to so many people.'