Tarrant phones his wax friend

Chris Tarrant comes face to face with his model

TV presenter and radio DJ Chris Tarrant took one look at his waxwork model and said: "I didn't realise I looked this rough but apparently I do."

The model, which will go on display at Madame Tussaud's, London, was delivered to the Capital FM studios on Tuesday morning where Tarrant presents the breakfast show.

Ingrid, Chris Tarrant's wife, gets close to the "better looking" version

"When they brought me into Capital Radio I was in a body bag," he said.

He added: "Every time I turned around to load a new CD he was grinning at me - it was very unnerving.

"He's a very good likeness - he looks slightly bewildered and I spend a lot of my time bewildered."

Radio rival

The model will go on display alongside radio rival Chris Evans at the popular tourist attraction.

"I can handle that. I'm sure we can stay apart in wax," said Tarrant.

The worst bit was when they were choosing my eyeballs

Chris Tarrant

The presenter also revealed that ITV would be considering the future scheduling of the hit quiz show Who Wants to be a Millionaire? after one more long run.

He said: "The problem is, is how best to use it and get the revenue from it.

"Obviously ITV want to make as much money as possible without killing it."

The presenter's wife, Ingrid, said the model was an improvement on the original.

"It's more good looking and it doesn't talk," she said.

Tarrant said there were some unnerving moments when he had to sit for the sculptor.

Eye sockets

He said: "The worst bit was when they were choosing my eyeballs, I was staring into my own empty eye sockets which was very macabre."

When he first saw himself in wax he thought his ears were too big.

But the sculptor used a pair of callipers to prove that his own ears were bigger than he had thought.

Tarrant said: "You get used to your own face over years and years of hard living."

Sculptor Jim Kempton took six months to make the waxwork.

He said: "He has got a very malleable face as everybody knows and trying to pin it down to one expression wasn't easy.

"You would have thought from being on television he would know what his expressions look like but I don't think he studies himself that much."