Emily Atack has announced she is engaged.

The Rivals, 35, actress took to her Instagram on Friday to reveal the happy news alongside a loved up snap with shirtless fiancé Alistair Garner.

The couple, who welcomed their son Barney in June 2024, appeared overjoyed as they smiled for the camera, proudly displaying the stunning diamond ring. The ring features a square cut on a graceful gold band.

Emily gushed in the caption: ‘It’s Friday, I’m in love’ while fans and famous friends rushed to the comments to offer their congratulations. 

Laura Whitmore commented, ‘Yassssss! Delighted for you both you cuties xxx.’ Meanwhile, Fleur East exclaimed, ‘Woooo! Let’s gooo!!! Congrats,’ and Sophie Ellis Bextor posted applause emojis.

Tilly Kepper typed: ‘Congratulations!!’ followed by Emily’s Rivals co-star Bella Maclean who gushed: ‘AHHHHHHHHHHH’.

Emily Atack, 35, has announced she is engaged to boyfriend Alistair Garner as she took to Instagram with a loved-up post on Friday 

The actress has known her boyfriend Alistair for almost three decades as her mother is the sister of Alistair’s stepmother Jane Garner.

They were introduced after Emily’s aunt started dating Alistair’s father Stephen Garner in the early nighties before they got married in 1994.

In her 2019 autobiography, “Are We There Yet?”, Emily hinted at the reasons behind her relationship with Alistair, 38. She mentioned how her cousins ‘connect on a profound level,’ providing insight into their bond.

She says: ‘Cousins are the best invention since the Game Boy. They are basically 50 per cent sibling, 50 per cent mate. You look the same but different…

‘You understand each other on a deep, deep, level and you have a smidgen more social etiquette towards them than your brother or sister…

‘It makes me sad for my friends who don’t have that relationship with their cousins, because mine were the best friends I ever had. They are still my best friends to this day.’

Emily rarely comments on her private life but has now admitted that she feels as if she has ‘won the lottery’ with the little one, and added that she couldn’t have gone through the ‘difficult labour’ with anyone but her partner.

She told HELLO! magazine last year: ‘I couldn’t ask for a better partner and Al is the only person on this earth that I could have done this with.

The couple welcomed son Barney together last June (pictured celebrating his first birthday)

Emily gushed in the caption: ‘It’s Friday, I’m in love’ while fans and famous friends rushed to the comments to offer their congratulations

‘It was a very difficult birth and after 12 hours of labour I ended up having an emergency caesarean, but he was so calm.’

Emily also described Alistair as her ‘literal rock’ and can not picture her life with anyone else.

She added: ‘All the cliches of life become true when you fall in love and have a baby. He’s my rock, but he really, literally, is my rock; I couldn’t do life with anyone else but him.’

She explained that they had hoped to have a family of their own after a year of dating and discovered her pregnancy in November 2023 when she realised she had missed a period.

She told The Times: ‘[Alistair] joked, “Let’s buy a pregnancy test then” We did and I was pregnant.

‘It was the happiest, most perfect day of my life. Not long afterwards, he packed all his stuff in a van in Manchester where he lived and arrived at my house.’

The actress explained that shortly after this, they bought a house together and Barney conveniently arrived the day after they finished unpacking.

Emily had known Alistair for more than 30 years by the time they struck up a relationship, and it was later revealed that he is her auntie’s stepson (pictured on Loose Women in Oct 2024)

Emily previously called her cousins ‘the best invention since the Game Boy’ and ’50 per cent sibling, 50 per cent mate’ before it was revealed she was expecting a baby with her auntie’s stepson (pictured with Alistair)