Holly Willoughby is somewhat shocked to be asked if her good friend Jack Osbourne has ever tired to chat her up. "me?" she says laughing. "I can't even imagine it. Why on earth would he?" Why indeed? Holly is, after all, a cute children's television presenter and former underwear model with an uncomplicated, sunny disposition. And Ozzy Osbourne's son is, well, a rather less-fortunate combination of mad hair, geeky glasses and podgy frame, whose battles with drink and drugs are well documented. But Holly is having non of it. Of the two of them, she adamantly maintains, it is him - not her - who is the real catch. Her blue eyes widen, giving her a look of a young innocent Marianne Faithful."He's Jack Osbourne" she says. "He's got girls all over the place, in Los Angeles and London. Jack wouldn't bother with me because he's got far too many women on the go already."

And she doesn't find it hard to see the appeal of the man who, along side her, co-presented Bring it on, the ITV2 'extras' show attached to ITV1's ill fated 'Celebrity Wrestling'. "Absolutely," she says. "It's nothing to do with the way he looks - even though I don't think he's at all unattractive. He's very funny and all women love a man who can make them laugh. He's got opinions on every subject under the sun and he's so weird and quirky yet easy to talk to." She pauses then smiles. "But the thing about Jack is that he's a real old-fashioned gentleman. When we worked together, I'd come to the studio in London straight away from filming Ministry of Mayhem in Maidstone. I'd walk in with my suitcase and Jack wouldn't say anything but he'd automatically pick it up and carry it upstairs to my dressing room. That's what really first impressed me about Jack. Underneath everything you see or think you know, he's actually this very well-mannered, polite, considerate boy. I felt comfortable with him from the outset. He taught me how to play poker and we'd spend al out free time playing that or swapping music on our iPods. I got him into British indie bands and he tried to get me into more heavy stuff, but a lot of his music is actually too extreme for me."

..But no romance? The 22-year-old shakes her head. "No, not with Jack. Not with anyone. I'm completely single at the moment and I've never even once been chatted up by anyone I met through my job. I know a lot of TV presenters who do interviews with pop stars get asked out on dates, but it's never happened to me. I wish it would. Maybe there's something wrong with me."

Holly is, in fact, an extremely likeable girl who's heart-stopping good looks don't appear to have registered on her ego at all. As part of her job as presenter on ITV's anarchic Saturday-morning children's show, Ministry of Mayhem she is required to have a variety of cakes smashed into her face on a weekly basis. "It's not something you'd want to do if you were too precious," she says. "It's a children's show. It's a laugh and I'm lucky to be doing it. If that's what comes from being caked, bring them on."

She was born in Burgress Hill, West Sussex, not far from where she lives now. Her farther Brian works as a manager for a double glazing company; her mother, Lyn, have up her job as an air stewardess to look after Holly and her elder sister, Kelly, who now works in music management. At the age of 14 she was spotted on a school trip to the Clothes Show Live exhibition, and was signed up by the Storm model agency, home to Kate Moss and Eva Herzigova. Within months she had become the queen of teen magazines. "I was lucky," says Holly. "I was young-looking and skinny and I had this image that appealed to magazines such as Mizz, Just Seventeen and More!."

By 17, she had developed into a much curvier version of her pre-pubescent self. In a world of super-skinny models and celebrities Holly is a wholesome size 12. What's more, she's happy with it. Her breakfast for the pst three days has been slices of chocolate sponge from her sisters birthday cake (they share a house), and the word 'diet' isn't in her vocabulary. "I was delighted when I developed hips and boobs," she says. "At school I was always known as 'flat-chested Willoughby' and then wham! My body turned into my mother's. If my model agency had told me to diet back down I would have just quit. I like womanly figures. To me the sexiest women of our times have to me Marilyn Monroe Sophia Loren and Brigitte Bardot, and non of them were stick thin. I love food. I love buying it, preparing it, cooking it and eating it. I wouldn't be happy if I had to avoid something that is actually a very big part of my life. I'd already decided that if this meant I couldn't do modeling I'd take up a place at university to read psychotherapy. That was what I wanted to do."

Her model agency had other ideas: specifically, underwear modeling. She was put up for the converted Pretty Polly campaign and secured the job, much to the astonishment of her old school mates ("It was such a joke that the flat-as-a-pancake girl was now a bra model!") Pretty Polly was looking for someone different. "A load of girls were herded into this one room with heap of bras and told to put one on." says Holly "There was a pile of larger bras and a pile of small ones. All the small ones went, and I was the only girl that needed a larger one. I was probably the only model there with a normal body shape."

The chances of her going to university seemed more and more unlikely as life threw more luck at Holly. She went to audition with a friend, who was trying out as a TV presenter, and landed the job herself. He debut was part of S Club TV, the brain child of pop Svengali Simon Fuller. "I loved it from the start," says Holly. "I did it for a year and after that I knew i wanted to stay in television. I went up for loads of other jobs but I didn't get any."

She pauses and says something no wannabe presenter ever says. "The truth is that I was absolutely useless. On S Club TV we rehearsed all day for a 15-minute segment. Everything was scripted, it was more like acting than presenting and not too far removed from my work on commercials. I'd go up for interviews and they'd give me an ear-piece. I'd hear instructions [from show's producers] in my ear - but then talk out loud back to him!" She puts her head in her hands. "I was so embarrassing. At some auditions they'd put me through the mill because they could see I was so green. It really taught me a lesson."

By now, neither modeling nor university was and option as Holly was fixated with presenting. To her credit, she decided to work her way up in an industry that had virtually turned its back on her. After S Club TV she landed a job as a receptionist at a TV production company, before working as a runner on the shopping channel Auction World TV. Holly them moved into a seedy flat in west London ("it was supposed to be nice, but when we moved in we found there was no shower, no flooring and the toilet wasn't fixed to the floor - we had to use the loo in a car wash place below us") and worked her backside off.

"I never mentioned to anyone that I'd been involved with television before, because really I knew absolutely nothing," says Holly. "Whenever I worked I'd ask questions non-stop and try to absorb everything. I wanted to know how things worked, what everyone did, from the production secretary to the floor manager. I was only doing shifts, so I also took on cleaning jobs, bar work and learnt how to manicure and pedicure for extra cash, and I started and Open University course in psychotherapy. I spent two years learning as much as I could. I finally found a job as assistant floor manager, and then I persuaded a friend to make a showreel for me with a camcorder and sent it off to as many places as possible." The showreel secured her an agent, and within months her career began in earnest at the BBC when she was taken on as CBBC presenter. Last year she moved to Ministry of Mayhem.

Her dream now is to move into 'grown-up' television, despite the experience on Bring It On, which was canned midway through it's run. "It was so disappointing because I loved the show and everyone who worked on it," she says. "I was shocked they pulled it. But you never now what is going to take off" Holly herself is more of a sure bet. Bright, hard-working, good company and pretty to boot, there is clearly more of Ms Willoughby to come!