Katie Hopkins has earned herself a reputation for being an excellent interviewee; she is never too shy to express herself, and her name has recently become synonymous with controversy. As I learnt during our interview, however, Hopkins is not only an outspoken media personality, but a hard-working mother of three.

Does Hopkin's famously candid temperament carry through to her home-life? Hopkins says that having “a militaresque background” dictates the running of her busy household “of husband, children, nannies and parents.” She admits that it sounds “dreadfully organized,” but refers to it as a consequence of being a working mum. When asked about the part she played in choosing her children’s playmates according to names, she defends her now-infamous opinions. Hopkins tells me how her children “started at state school” because she thought it was best if they “earned their place at private school.”

Hopkins’ reason for discriminating between her children’s playmates stems from her belief that it is children with certain names that “generally turn up late, don’t have the right stuff and haven’t done their home learning.” She wants to keep her children away from Tylers and Chardonnays and refers to her own name “as a rubbish name.” I don’t agree with her but I must admit that these views are widespread and few have the guts to say them out loud – I appreciate her honesty if anything. I ask her what she thinks of my name and she replies: “Do I have a view on Heshams? No, I don’t know Heshams – see, it has to link to someone I know.” She smiles.

When asked about her divorce from her previous husband, she discloses how little her children were at the time – “just one” – and slows down her speech to show a side rarely seen of Katie. She says that her husband had “gone”, and when I inquire further reveals that he’d “run away with his secretary.” She goes on: “it makes you quite tough … you have to pick yourself up and work out how to deal with it … I was alone and had a full time job overseas across the Atlantic…”.

I bring up Tom Daley, and Hopkins' recent statements expressing the belief that his coming out was merely a publicity stunt. She responds: “it was really lame … we all knew he was gay, people love Tom Daley and the people who watch divers [are the] kind of the people who like to read Women’s Weekly.” She concludes, however, that men who choose to come out in other sports like football, rugby or baseball in the United States are brave men that deserve respect. When asked how accepting she would be if her son Maximilian came out, she explodes into a gush: “Oh, I’m hoping he is... because he likes skipping, he likes hairdressing”.  She continues: “it means that when I’m fifty and I’ve got a gay son – I’m totally sorted – [he'll say] 'Mom your hairdo is awful, you have hair under your chin…'”. We share a few laughs and she adds: “I think he might be – I mean he’s quite good-looking, like my girls aren’t good-looking but he totally is.” We then move on to more serious matters as we spend some time deciding on a name for her son’s future partner – we decide on Thomas or Tom for short. “We’ve got it sorted”, she decides. Later, we discover we share liberal attitudes towards Grindr and other online dating applications.

When asked about her party affiliations, Hopkins reveals that she will be voting for the Conservatives, but questions whether they’d ever want her to be a supporter. She adds that she feels sorry for the way the media has dealt with UKIP, and has respect for the party for withstanding so much. She does not, however, agree with the party’s policies.

I ask Hopkins whether she regrets not having attended Cambridge. She reveals that she applied to Oxford and got an interview, only to be rejected later. “I like a hill in my life,” she says, and so we can assume that had she been at Cambridge she would have been a proud Girtonian.