I never trained for a career in dance, says Lottie Ryan
DWTS star sidesteps questions about her experience as a dancer
2FM PRESENTER Lottie Ryan, the daughter of the late beloved broadcaster Gerry, has dismissed suggestions she has significant dance experience as she prepares to take to the floor in this year’s Dancing With The Stars.
This is despite the fresh emergence of a first-person piece she wrote for the Irish Examiner in 2015, where she proclaimed: ‘I think I will always dance, I get such joy from it.’
Those competing for the annual Glitterball Trophy are meant to be amateur dancers at best.
In an interview this week on RTÉ Radio 1, Ryan Tubridy asked Lottie about her experience. But she swatted away suggestions that she was a seasoned dancer.
She told Tubridy: ‘I’m really looking forward to being out of my comfort zone and doing something that I just have no clue about. It is learning something new.’
When further pressed about her dance chops, Lottie downplayed them: ‘I clap in time at a concert so I think that means I have rhythm. I think.
‘Listen, I went to performing arts school as a child – as many people do – but this is, this is a completely different discipline.
‘Like technically ballroom, Latin I have never done something like this in my whole life. I am planking myself.’
However, in an interview with the Irish Mirror in 2017, Lottie admitted that at one stage she was working and training towards being a professional dancer until she incurred an injury due to her intensive training.
She said: ‘All I wanted was to be a dancer. I trained as a dancer and
I had tunnel vision when I was in transition year.’
The Clontarf native was also a teacher at the Young Performers Academy where she taught classes to both children and adults.
She said: ‘As someone who teaches at a performing arts school with young kids I think it’s great for them to see something like that.’
In the first-person piece in 2015 she outlined the extent of her dance training. She said: ‘I also trained as a dancer in New York and I teach hip-hop to adults and kids at the weekend.’
But an RTÉ spokeman said her dance past had been wildly exaggerated:
She said: ‘Lottie attended Broadway Dance Centre when she was on holidays a couple of times for a drop-in dance class. But not the NY Academy of Dance.’
Meanwhile, a spokesman for RTÉ said: ‘Over previous series the DWTS celebrities have had varying levels of dance experience and work with their pro dancer to master a number of different dance genres for the live shows. None of the celebrities who are participating are professional dancers.’
‘I have never done something like this’