Made In Chelsea's Ollie Locke sobbing as he opens up over baby son's 'traumatising' 3-hour operation

From discovering his sexuality to getting married and becoming a parent, Ollie Locke has had the biggest milestones of his adult life played out on screen. The Made In Chelsea regular, who joined the show for its first series in 2011, has shared the good, the bad and the ugly on the E4 show – and as he tells OK!, he has no regrets.

“My entire twenties has been documented on high resolution camera. No one gets that,” says Ollie, laughing. “Life is difficult for lots of people, including us,” he says. “So, if we can sit there and make someone smile on a Monday night, it’s a real privilege to be able to do so. If we can stop them thinking about their lives for 10 seconds and make them laugh, what a joy.”

Ollie’s dedication to TV has come with its ultimate highs, such as the 2020 episode, which aired his wedding to husband Gareth Locke at the Natural History Museum in London. “We’ll always have that memory of getting married on TV, which not many people can say they have,” says Ollie, 37. “Our wedding was watched by 3.5 million people and it’s amazing – our kids can watch their parents get married. It’s lovely.”

But it has also featured extreme lows, including the couple finding out on camera in 2021 that their surrogate had suffered a miscarriage at six weeks. “We put all the rawness of our relationship on camera,” says Ollie. “We found out on camera that we had lost our babies after I said to the producers, ‘If I’m going to do this, I will do it properly.’ I told them to keep the cameras rolling whatever happened so it was real. Then we found out. It was some really powerful and raw stuff.”

In July 2023, Ollie and Gareth became parents to fraternal twins, Apollo Magnus Obi and Cosima Emily Bex, after experiencing failed IVF attempts and miscarriages. Ollie is clearly a doting dad as his eyes light up when we ask about the twins. “It’s the best experience I’ve ever had in my life,” he says. “I can’t imagine life without it – it’s bizarre. Cosi is a bit of a monkey. She’s smiley and Apollo is a total boy who likes to bounce into things, roll off things and throw things.”

Ollie and Gareth, who started dating in 2018 after years of friendship, have certainly got their hands full with the twins. Admitting that becoming a family of four has been a difficult adjustment, Ollie explains, “At the beginning, Gareth would take Apollo and I had Cosi when it came to changing and night-times and all that kind of stuff. Otherwise, with twins, it’s mental. You’re up the whole night and then you go back to sleep but it’s time for another feed two hours later.

"We were exhausted and there were definitely some tears at the beginning. You’re not yourself in any manner – you’re a completely different person. Every time I see my mum now I thank her because you don’t realise how hard it is to raise a child until you’re a parent yourself. It makes you more grateful.”

While Ollie has settled into life as a dad, he and Gareth have been through a challenging time which saw Apollo in hospital for an operation he has needed since birth. “We’re OK and he’s fine,” says Ollie, who doesn’t disclose what the operation was for but says it was a tumultuous time for the family.

“It was absolutely horrendous. It’s really, really difficult having any child go on general anaesthetic, but it’s awful having your baby not understand what that is because he’s too young. It was traumatising. I cried for three hours while he was in the operation – I just didn’t know what else to do so I stayed there and cried. I was like, ‘This is just the worst.’

“For the first couple of weeks afterwards, it was a different routine that we had to go with because he needed extra help with his problems. So that was certainly quite a hard one, I must admit. But he’s back to normal now. He’s happy and smiley and doesn’t have to go in for another operation, which they thought he might have to.”

After such a difficult period, Ollie is in need of some festive spirit and can’t wait for the twins’ second Christmas. “I think Cosi will be walking properly by Christmas – she walked the best she ever has today actually. So hopefully this Christmas will be a bit easier because, right now, they are crawling in different directions.”

So, what have the couple got planned for the festive period? “Well, we do this thing called a ‘straggler Christmas’, which is basically where we invite anyone we know who isn’t from the UK but is here for Christmas to our house,” says Ollie. “So this year we have a bit of a celeb-filled day. There will be [reality star] Stephanie Pratt, [Broadway star] Billy Porter, [singer] Parson James and two of the Made In Chelsea cast, but I can’t say who.

“The twins will love it too – they’re very well socialised. We have always thought it was important to slot the babies into our social lives rather than the other way around, so we can still have fun with friends and do things together.”

After their busy Christmas Day, Ollie tells us the family will be jetting off on holiday to spend quality time together. But before that, he needs to get his Christmas shopping in order, something he admittedly “hasn’t thought about”. Ollie is working with Virgin Experience Days and is considering gifting some experiences to friends this year.

“There’s hundreds if not thousands of experiences on the Virgin Experience Days website and it’s extraordinary,” he says. “I think, for anyone who’s busy, that would be a lovely gift – to be able to go and give a full day of doing something wonderful. We take for granted things that are on our doorstep. The other day I walked past Buckingham Palace while scrolling through my phone. I was like, ‘What are you doing? Take it in!’”

Ollie and Gareth enjoyed their own Virgin Experience Day out recently, which included indoor skydiving, a trip to a spa, a six-course dinner and a night in a glamorous hotel. “I’m not the adrenaline junkie that Gareth is, so the indoor skydiving was more for him,” says Ollie. “It was fab but also very frightening. When we got to the spa, that was much more my thing.”

Ollie has teamed up with Virgin Experience Days to launch a limited-time collection of exclusive experiences. To shop Ollie Locke’s Perfect Day, see virginexperiencedays.co.uk/ollie-locke-collection