I’m Fitter in my 40s than I was in my 20s

We are on the cusp of a new year and for Jennifer Zamparelli that means a lot of new and exciting things.

There’s a new series of Dancing With The Stars, with new celebrities taking to the floor and, of course, she has a new co-presenter in the form of Doireann Garrihy.

‘In the run-up to Christmas, all this newness made for hard work but once the series gets up and running, things will hopefully power ahead like a well-oiled machine. ‘I think it’s more hectic before the show starts as we have all the prep to do,’ Jennifer says. 

‘Once the show is up and running, it’s only on Saturdays and Sundays but for the last few weeks there have been lots of photoshoots and lots of press and rehearsals, so it’s all kind of crazy. I think it’ll calm down a bit in January.’ 

Jennifer believes this series will be a phenomenal one as the line-up is fantastic. She is looking forward to everything being different and yet the same. ‘

Doireann and myself have been in the same building for three years but we never see each other because she would be in so early withthe breakfast show and then she would be gone by the time I’m getting in,’ she says of her new co-presenter and fellow 2FM DJ. 

‘In the two weeks before Christmas we’ve probably seen each other nearly every day. It’s been mad but it’s been great to get to know her and work with her. I am really excited to see what she’s going to do in her role. It’s going to be a lot of fun.’ Doireann, she says, has an action-packed diary. 

‘She’s a busy girl,’Jennifer says. ‘ I’m always telling her to lie down or have a snooze.’

This is something the presenter has had to take heed of herself after almost burning out a few years ago and these days she is much better at it. ‘

Well, I am always busy because I have kids,’ she says. ‘ But these days I say no to a lot of stuff. I am very good at minding myself now. You just can’t do everything, you can’t spread yourself too thin as you start to not enjoy what you’re doing and you are not very present at gigs and for the great job that you have. 

There’s a new series of Dancing With The Stars , with new celebrities taking to the floor and, of course, she has a new co-presenter in the form of Doireann Garrihy

‘So when it starts becoming like that, it’s time to really slow down a little bit and mind yourself. That’s ok to do. A couple of years ago I would think, I have to do everything and I have to be everywhere, but that feeling has gone. I just don’t feel like that any more.’ 

It is probably something to do with life experience too – in a society where women are expected to be perfect in every aspect of their lives, it’s experience that makes you realise you don’t need to sweat the small stuff.

Jennifer, however, is still a very busy woman. She first shot to fame on The Apprentice, where we saw that she has a savvy business head on her shoulders – which she used again recently when opening a hair salon called Hair People with pal Bernadette Byrnes – and she has her daily radio show on 2FM as well as DWTS.

So when rumours swirl round that this will be the last DWTS – as they do every year – Jennifer ignores the chatter. ‘

I mean, I love Dancing With The Stars and I really wouldn’t want to see it go,’ she says of the latest rumour. ‘

Jennifer believes this series will be a phenomenal one as the line-up is fantastic. She is looking forward to everything being different and yet the same ‘

It’s one of those shows that does phenomenally well for RTÉ. It’s glitz and glamour at a time of year when we need it the most.

It is loved by the nation and gets great ratings but we will just have to wait and see.

You never really know what’s going to happen. ‘Over the years I’ve learned that the jobs always come. I have been self-employed since the age of 18. I am fairly secure and set up in my life.

As long as my children and my family are okay, that’s all that really matters.’ The last year has gone in a blur for Jennifer, she says, but one of the things she did that she enjoyed was taking the most time off work that she has ever managed.

Jennifer, however, is still a very busy woman. She first shot to fame on The Apprentice, where we saw that she has a savvy business head on her shoulders

In the grand scheme of things it was just three weeks but for the hard-working presenter it was time to make precious moments with her little family. ‘My husband Lau was working in Rome for five months and I took the kids over for four weeks,’ she explains. ‘

I broadcast my radio show from the Vatican for a week and then I took the rest of the time off. To just have the experience of working and living and being over there was phenomenal. We brushed up on our Italian and the kids had a great time. ‘I had so much time with the kids just by myself when Lau was working on set so that was the most memorable thing for us I think in 2022 and it was nice to be able to do it.’ 

Lau’s family are in England and he has relatives in Italy too and Jennifer feels it is important for her children – Enzo, 4, and Florence, 7 – to know and understand that side of their background. So they were devastated just a couple of weeks ago when Lau’s granny passed away at 97.

The whole family went to the funeral – and managed to get trapped in the snow and ice over there, which actually gave them time together to grieve.

‘We had no choice, we had to just down tools and stay with the in-laws.’ Jennifer says. Her children loved ‘Nona’ and Jennifer wanted them to be at the funeral.

But she says one of her biggest worries is trying to protect them from what lies outside the family’s front door. Enzo, her baby, will be starting school in September and she reckons there will be tears when the moment comes – but from Mammy.

‘He’s ready because he is nearly five but he is my boy so there might be a few tears at the school gate that day,’ she says. ‘ You just want to protect them. You don’t want anybody to be an a*****e to them.

Obviously they’re gonna meet a******s in their life, there’s not much you can do about that, but that’s definitely my biggest fear, them having problems in school with bullies or anything like that.

‘It’s so common so the law of averages is they’re going to experience it in their lifetime at some stage. I think everybody has, to some degree really. I just want them to know that they can always come to me and talk to me about anything at all. I think if you keep that line of communication open and they know that they can talk to you. It makes everything a little easier.

‘Life chips away at that confidence bit by bit and they have had no issues in school yet but you have to be ready for it. I just hope that they’ll come and talk to me if they ever have an issue.’ Jennifer would strike you as a confident person but she admits it depends on her situation. In front of the camera or the radio mic confidence is something that you have to have in spades. ‘I think to a certain degree you have to be a confident person if you are doing this job,’ she says.

‘But it depends on what the task is. I would be confident about doing a live show on telly but I wouldn’t be confident about making a stroganoff.’ The trick to being good on live television, Zamparelli says, is to make it look easy. 

‘There is a lot going on. You have someone in your ear constantly, you are on live telly in six-inch heels walking down stairs, so you have a lot to think about and a lot to consider. I suppose there’s a certain skill set in that the audience doesn’t know when people are good at it but they do know when people are terrible at it.’

When we speak, Jennifer is about to meet Doireann and talk scripts and she feels her new co-presenter is a natural. ‘She’s very, very professional,’ Jennifer says. ‘She’s very giving as a co-presenter and when we did our chemistry test, it just kind of worked. It was very easy. There is a great comfort in someone who has experience.’ 

Jennifer is at pains to point out that as a seasoned radio presenter, Doireann is well able for the live challenge but there is one concern her co-presenter has been vocal about. 

‘Trying not to fall down the stairs I think is her biggest concern,’ she laughs. ‘I don’t think she is worried about anything else except those stairs.’

Jennifer will miss Nicky Byrne, who has returned to the Westlife stable. ‘Nicky was a huge part of the show – he really loved it and he was so lovely to work with,’ she says. ‘But Doireann will bring something really different to the role and there will be no comparison, they are just very different people.’

Jennifer’s friend and regular contributor to her radio show, Lottie Ryan, was also up for the role but was pipped at the post by Doireann. ‘I was disappointed for her but that’s just the nature of the business,’ Jennifer says.

‘Something else will come along for Lottie, she’s amazing at what she does, she’s a great presenter and people love her. ‘Lottie gets huge reactions on my show when she is talking about anything and she is doing the podcast for DWTS again – that was a huge success the last time she did it – so I am excited for that.’

As for the new line-up of celebrities – Panti Bliss, Suzanne Jackson, Brooke Scullion, Dr Marie Cassidy, Leah O’Rourke, Stephanie Roche, Carl

Mullan, Damian McGinty, Shane Byrne and Paul Brogan – Jennifer knows some of them quite well and has had others guests on her radio show. She has yet to meet

Suzanne Jackson and she is excited about the make-up guru’s appearance. Then, of course, there’s her old mate Kevin McGahern from The Republic Of Telly. Will she be showing him any favouritism? ‘No!’ Jennifer laughs. ‘I hope he falls on his a**e, he would be the first to be slagging if it was someone else! 

Apparently he has a few moves so he will be fairly decent I would say.’ It’s a very glamorous role and aside from the moves on the floor, Jennifer’s outfits are one of the main talking points of each week. ‘Fiona Fagan, the stylist, has started prepping already and she is more excited  than anybody, I think, because she has to dress two female presenters,’ Jennifer reveals. 

‘So she’s really excited by it. She’s very good. She gives us a good mix of sustainability and Irish designers, high end and high street so she knows what she is doing. ‘I’ve worked with her now for a few seasons, so I’m very comfortable with her vision and what she wants for the show. She’s super excited to dress the two of us.’

Jennifer is a gym lover who works out to both look good and feel good mentally and she is already working with a personal trainer on a seven-week programme. ‘I feel great,’ she says. 

‘I am fitter in my 40s than I was in my 20s so I want to keep that going – and then spend my 50s getting drunk and ruin it all,’ she says laughing.

But if you think presenting looks like a lot of hard work, spare a thought for the contestants. ‘A lot of them are in for a bit of a land,’ Jennifer reveals. 

‘I mean, I don’t think they really consider how much work being on the show is. You can see the effort, you can see the ones who are in dance rehearsals for eight hours a day because it really shows.’

So behind the scenes are there more tears and traumas than we might know about? ‘There are tears, cortisone injections for the pain – I mean these dancers are athletes and they expect a lot from the celebrities and they are training full-on,’ Jennifer says. ‘It is nicey nicey at the beginning and then it gets serious. 

The professional dancers just want the best performance.’ It will be interesting, she says, to see this year’s batch of celebrities become competitive because that always happens too. ‘It just comes out in them – people can’t help it because they just want to stay in. 

They don’t want to leave because it’s so much fun. But,’ says Zamparelli ominously, ‘someone always has to be the first to go…’

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