Matt Willis has revealed the Church of Scientology tried to break up his relationship with Emma Willis

Speaking to The Sun newspaper, he said: "What I was taking from it was that your environment, your friends and the people you’re closest to are your problem.

"I was like, ‘What are you f****** getting at here?’ They were like, ‘There’s someone in your life who’s actually draining you, who’s a negative force, and it’s normally the person closest to you’.

"And it’s like, ‘I think they’re trying to split my f****** marriage up now’. They were trying to force this weird opinion on me. When I look back at it, I was like, ‘Are you trying to separate me from everybody else?’ "

Matt and Emma have been married since 2008 and have kids Isabelle, 11, Ace, nine, and Trixie, four, together.

The 37-year-old star joined the church - which was founded by sci-fi author L Ron Hubbard in the 1950s - while he was recovering from drug and alcohol addiction, and visited the London headquarters every day.

He underwent a process called "auditing", and explained: "I held these metal things and he tested me and I suddenly realised I was in somewhere called the Church of Scientology. I didn’t know anything about it.

“I answered some questions and a little dial moved and I was like, ‘Wow, what’s this?’ They said to me, ‘We think we can help you. You do a simple course and you come out the other end a different person’.

"I was like, ‘Cool, all right, sounds good’. Little commitment. Fine.”

Matt - who the church left after three months but still hears from its members - warned people against getting involved, and described it as a "very, very weird place".

He added: “I just never went back, stopped picking up my phone to them. But they rang me every day for a month and they drop into my texts every six months, eight months, out the blue, like, ‘Hey, Matt, how are you doing?' ”