Lottie Ryan
Lottie Ryan tells Niamh Walsh how she plans to celebrate her Dancing With The Stars win when lockdown ends and reveals her family’s plans to mark Gerry’s tenth anniversary are now on hold
As the daughter of radio royalty, it was perhaps inevitable that Lottie Ryan would follow in her father Gerry’s footsteps and forge a career in broadcasting.
A talent for theatrics, a penchant for performance and a drive to match her dad’s ambition has seen Lottie rise seamlessly through the ranks of RTÉ.
In January, the rising star shone most bright when she lifted the glitterball trophy on this season’s
Dancing With The Stars with pro partner Pasquale La Rocca. And while her win was a hard-fought battle, she says victory on the dancefloor came at the end of an all-consuming competition.
‘It was indescribable. It was one of the best moments. I don’t know if I can ever describe how much that show requires from a person. You really just hand your life over to it,’ says Lottie.
‘It’s all-consuming. It doesn’t just consume you timewise, it consumes you emotionally because I just had such a joy for it, I got such joy from the show. It really does feel quite incredible to get the recognition back at the end for all the hard work that you put into it. It was an incredible moment,’ Lottie tells Magazine this weekend.
This year’s DWTS came to an abrupt end as the coronavirus crisis forced producers to host the final a week earlier than scheduled.
And while Lottie put on the show of her life, she says the four finalists were petrified but thrilled when they were told just hours before showtime that it was to be their last fandango.
‘Initially I felt sick. When they first told us, it was like lunchtime on the Sunday, so it was literally only a few hours before we were going to air. I think we were all very shocked, because the team had been working very hard behind the scenes to make sure a show did go ahead, so we hadn’t heard any whispers.
‘But very quickly we all had to go, “ok, we have a final to put on so we’d better get our s**t together”. We also had to acknowledge that realistically there were probably going to be a lot more people watching than there normally would be. We felt everybody was a bit freaked out and if we could all dance around on the TV for an hour and give people a little light relief, then it would be a privilege to do it.
‘I think we all just took a big deep breath and gave them the best show we could. We just felt “let’s just put on all the costumes and the glitter and give the absolute best show that we can”.’
As one of five Ryan siblings, Lottie is incredibly close to her mother Morah, brother Rex and sisters Bonnie and Babs. And while the Ryan clan has been her biggest support, along with husband Fabio Aprile, she says her win was bittersweet as her family were kept away from her sensational final showdown.
‘That night I obviously didn’t have my family there with me. When I went back to the dressing room, I had all these voice notes from mum screaming and shouting, then I just had to get into the car and come straight home. So, I haven’t seen them. That’s obviously a little bit crap because I haven’t had a chance to celebrate – we didn’t get to have a wrap party. I came home that night and went to bed, so I am dying to celebrate. I want to go out with my glitterball and dance around.’
While Lottie is dancing with joy at her win, she is missing a little sparkle from her DWTS life.
‘Would you believe I don’t have the glitterball? I actually don’t get to keep the one you see on the telly; I get a miniature replica and it hasn’t been sent yet. I can’t wait to get it – it will definitely be going somewhere very prominent. I don’t care, even if it is miniature, it is going somewhere very prominent in my apartment.’
Lottie’s rise to small-screen stardom comes in the year that her family marks the tenth anniversary of the death of her father, RTÉ legend Gerry Ryan, who died on 30 April 2010.
A family trip to Italy to commemorate and celebrate their father’s life has now been
‘I still haven’t got my glitterball’
‘I broadcast from bed half the time’
cancelled due to the ongoing coronavirus crisis.
‘We had originally planned to go away together. We were going to go to Italy – that’s obviously not going to happen now. I honestly don’t know what our plans are going to be because I don’t even know if we are going to be able to be with each other. We haven’t actually spoken about it.’
Lottie, who is now 34, says that it sometimes feels like her dad had just died recently.
‘It’s a weird one. In some ways it feels like it was just yesterday, like if he walked into the room, I’d be just like “ah, howya”. But in other ways I feel like I haven’t spoken to him in ages.
‘I just feel like I was a completely different person. I just really wish that he could see how well everybody has done and how great everybody has grown.’
And she says while he would have been bursting with paternal pride at her DWTS success, he would never have taken to the dancefloor himself.
‘I think he would have f***ing loved DWTS.
Not a hope would he have done it,’ she says. ‘I don’t think he ever would have done something like that.
‘I think he would have been just happy to sit in the audience.’
Gerry Ryan was one of the nation’s most-loved broadcasters and while Lottie feels his loss immeasurably in many ways, she says his sage advice is what she misses most.
‘He always had the best advice. He always told you what you needed to hear, even if it wasn’t what you wanted to hear,’ she says.
‘He was like a counsellor to me. But then sometimes when I think “I wonder what advice Dad would give me on that?” Sometimes you just know what he would say.’
But as her father would most certainly have said to his budding broadcasting daughter, the show must go on. And like much of the country, Lottie is working from home and doing her 2FM show from her bedroomduring the national lockdown.
‘Every day is different. Generally, half the day is in my jammies, if I’m being totally honest, and then the other half of the day I get dressed. I do try to put on some semblance of normal outfit and put on make-up just to stop myself losing my head. It makes me feel a little bit normal and it also makes me feel like there’s a beginning, middle and end to the day. I feel like if I didn’t get up and have a bit of a routine and stick my face on and put my hair up in a nice pony and put some casual wear on, I wouldn’t know the difference between night and day.
‘The routine is as normal as it is for everybody at the station at the moment, which is quite remarkable as we are running the schedule as normal with nobody really in the radio centre. We’ve all got equipment at home and I’m half the time broadcasting from my bed when you hear me.
That’s what our new normal is and thankfully it sounds like we’re all there, which is a huge testament to the work that is going on behind the scenes. It’s definitely not an easy feat for everybody to pull it together, having teams separated and still communicating to get shows together and keep things upbeat.’
However, Lottie says trying to be positive and bright can be trying in the current Covid-19 world.
‘I try my best but it is hard. I’m wracking my brain trying to take different angles on things but even when I’m trying to do lighthearted celebrity stories to give people some kind of relief, it’s always coming from a corona angle, it’s very difficult not to have corona-related stuff.’
Her confinement to her home has, she says, given her lots of time with her husband Fabio, whom she married in 2017.
‘It’s like every couple: one minute you’re madly in love and the next minute you’re driving each other up the wall, but that’s the norm when you’re with each other 24/7,’ says Lottie.
‘My heart goes out to him because he owns a chipper, so they’ve had to close down. It’s been very difficult. It’s not an easy time for small businesses and the self-employed.
‘But I’m loving having the time to spend time with him. I hadn’t really seen him since Christmas with DWTS, so it’s brilliant to be able to be on a weird staycation at home together.’
The current crisis has put some of Lottie’s dreams on hold, but the bubbly presenter is bursting with ambition.
‘I’ve talked about a couple of things but nothing in-depth at the moment. It’s obviously been a very strange time. Everybody is just trying to keep everything afloat and not think about the future,’ she says.
‘Obviously, I personally have ideas about things that I would like and I’ve spoken to people about those ideas and I hope they will lift off the ground when everything calms down and when the time is right.
‘I’ve made no secret about wanting my own radio show. I would love to work more in television as well.
‘I also feel like I need to do dance in some way, which is something I haven’t quite figured out yet, but I need to have performance in some way in my life. I just need to figure out how to make that work.’
Her name has been thrown into the mix to take over from Eoghan McDermott on the 2FM
Breakfast show when he leaves for Australia later this year, coronavirus crisis allowing.
‘I don’t know timing-wise what the situation is with Eoghan and the show,’ she says. ‘I’ve had my go at Breakfast, and it is one of those all-consuming shows – it takes over your life and I definitely had an amazing time when I did it.’