Television audiences first met Ross Mathews more than a decade ago when he began covering celebrity events as an intern for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

On Wednesday (18 January), Mathews will appear as Leno's guest for the first time to talk about guest hosting the E! show Chelsea Lately all next week.

'It's going to be cool to actually sit down on the show,' Mathews tells Gay Star News. 'I've never actually sat down if you think about it.'

For more than a decade, the openly gay Mathews has been appearing sporadically on Leno as a correspondent where he is known for his helium-like voice and high-pitch giggle.

'He just took this kid and said, 'Go do your thing and we'll show it to everybody,'' he said of Leno. 'That was really the direction: 'Just got have fun.''

But the 32-year-old has managed to parlay his initial 'Ross the Intern' persona into a television career as a regular panelist on Handler's show and a pilot for a show of his own being shot in March.

Says Mathews: 'The reason I wanted to do a talk show was because my mom had summers off and I would watch Regis and Oprah with her and my mom seemed so happy and the talk show hosts were interviewing the celebrities I wanted to meet. I thought, 'Well, there's a job where I get meet those people and make mom happy so it's the perfect combo.'

He's also hard at work on a book that is scheduled to be published early next year.

'I'm writing it right now, it's due very soon,' he says. 'Not to toot my tooter but I'm just so fricking proud of it. I just think it's the best thing I've ever done. It's funny, it has a great message. It's about being different. Everybody [is] whether it's big ears, red hair, big nose, skin color, orientation. Especially when we're young, we don't know how to deal with it. It's about embracing about yourself what makes you different, what makes you stand out because you never know who will notice. People like Jay Leno will notice, Chelsea Handler will notice.'