Jennifer is a natural on live television but admits hosting Dancing With The Stars was ‘quite a scary thing’ when she first took over from original host Amanda Byram<\/h2>\n\n![\"Jennifer](\"https:\/\/i2-prod.rsvplive.ie\/article37105374.ece\/ALTERNATES\/s1200f\/0_jenzamparelli_.jpg\")
<\/div>\nJennifer Zamparelli backstage at Dancing With The Stars(Image: Instagram\/dwtsirl)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Jennifer Zamparelli admits she struggled badly with nerves in the early days of hosting Dancing With The Stars<\/a>.<\/p>\nThe TV presenter was a rising star in RT\u00c9 thanks to shows such as Republic of Telly, Bridget and Eamon and 2FM’s Breakfast Republic.<\/p>\n
But taking over from Amanda Byram on Dancing With The Stars really made Jennifer<\/a> a household name.<\/p>\nSpeaking about getting the job back in 2018, she said: “For the first time, I thought maybe I could do that and bring something different to it.<\/p>\n
“I got on to my agent, and I said to her: ‘Just get me in the room’.”<\/p>\n
Hosting live television was new for Jennifer, and the mum of two says there were a lot of nerves in the early days.<\/p>\n
“It was quite a scary thing, even the first season I did, the second season I did, I was riddled with nerves going up those stairs, ready for the live,” she told Magazine+.<\/p>\n
“I remember hearing Baz Ashmawy say it once: it’s just about air miles.<\/p>\n
“It’s about doing it over and over and clocking up those air miles.<\/p>\n
“You can get more confident. You can get better at what you do.”<\/p>\n
Jennifer left 2FM<\/a> in 2024 but has stayed on with RT\u00c9<\/a> to host Dancing With The Stars, admitting she doesn’t want it to end.<\/p>\nShe said: “It’s a real privilege, it’s a show that I love to do. It fits in nicely with my life.<\/p>\n
“It’s just a joy from going in to do script reads, to the Saturday to the Sunday, it’s never a chore.<\/p>\n
“I’m working with really amazing people, and I love that most of the people in charge are women.”<\/p>\n
Since leaving radio, Jen has a better work\/life balance<\/a> and knows the importance of taking time out for yourself – and recently went for a mini break on her own.<\/p>\n“I could have brought anybody – my husband, a friend, anybody – but I made a conscious decision to go by myself, eat dinner by myself, have a massage and ready by book and try and come off my phone and all of that.<\/p>\n
“It was just lovely – I had a bloody great time, and it was enough, and it kind of inspired me.”<\/p>\n
Jennifer shared the trip away on Instagram and found the reaction online to be very interesting.<\/p>\n
She said: “The amount of women who got in contact with me and were like: ‘I’ve been meaning to do this for so long. This is my sign to do it’.<\/p>\n
“As a working mum sometimes you’re always on other people’s schedules. It was nice, even for 24 hours, to be on my own schedule.”<\/p>\n
Want to<\/strong> see more of the stories you love from RSVP<\/a> <\/strong>? To add RSVP as a preferred source of news on Google,<\/strong> simply click here<\/a><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.rsvplive.ie \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jennifer is a natural on live television but admits hosting Dancing With The Stars was ‘quite a scary thing’ when she first took over from original host Amanda Byram Jennifer Zamparelli backstage at Dancing With The Stars(Image: Instagram\/dwtsirl) Jennifer Zamparelli admits she struggled badly with nerves in the early days of hosting Dancing With The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2400276,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[41508,432599,388870],"class_list":["post-2400275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-dancing-with-the-stars","tag-jennifer-zamparelli","tag-rte"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Jennifer-Zamparelli-admits-her-biggest-struggle-in-early-days-of.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2400275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2400275"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2400275\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2400277,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2400275\/revisions\/2400277"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2400276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2400275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2400275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2400275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
<\/div>\nJennifer Zamparelli backstage at Dancing With The Stars(Image: Instagram\/dwtsirl)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Jennifer Zamparelli admits she struggled badly with nerves in the early days of hosting Dancing With The Stars<\/a>.<\/p>\n The TV presenter was a rising star in RT\u00c9 thanks to shows such as Republic of Telly, Bridget and Eamon and 2FM’s Breakfast Republic.<\/p>\n But taking over from Amanda Byram on Dancing With The Stars really made Jennifer<\/a> a household name.<\/p>\n Speaking about getting the job back in 2018, she said: “For the first time, I thought maybe I could do that and bring something different to it.<\/p>\n “I got on to my agent, and I said to her: ‘Just get me in the room’.”<\/p>\n Hosting live television was new for Jennifer, and the mum of two says there were a lot of nerves in the early days.<\/p>\n “It was quite a scary thing, even the first season I did, the second season I did, I was riddled with nerves going up those stairs, ready for the live,” she told Magazine+.<\/p>\n “I remember hearing Baz Ashmawy say it once: it’s just about air miles.<\/p>\n “It’s about doing it over and over and clocking up those air miles.<\/p>\n “You can get more confident. You can get better at what you do.”<\/p>\n Jennifer left 2FM<\/a> in 2024 but has stayed on with RT\u00c9<\/a> to host Dancing With The Stars, admitting she doesn’t want it to end.<\/p>\n She said: “It’s a real privilege, it’s a show that I love to do. It fits in nicely with my life.<\/p>\n “It’s just a joy from going in to do script reads, to the Saturday to the Sunday, it’s never a chore.<\/p>\n “I’m working with really amazing people, and I love that most of the people in charge are women.”<\/p>\n Since leaving radio, Jen has a better work\/life balance<\/a> and knows the importance of taking time out for yourself – and recently went for a mini break on her own.<\/p>\n “I could have brought anybody – my husband, a friend, anybody – but I made a conscious decision to go by myself, eat dinner by myself, have a massage and ready by book and try and come off my phone and all of that.<\/p>\n “It was just lovely – I had a bloody great time, and it was enough, and it kind of inspired me.”<\/p>\n Jennifer shared the trip away on Instagram and found the reaction online to be very interesting.<\/p>\n She said: “The amount of women who got in contact with me and were like: ‘I’ve been meaning to do this for so long. This is my sign to do it’.<\/p>\n “As a working mum sometimes you’re always on other people’s schedules. It was nice, even for 24 hours, to be on my own schedule.”<\/p>\n Want to<\/strong> see more of the stories you love from RSVP<\/a> <\/strong>? To add RSVP as a preferred source of news on Google,<\/strong> simply click here<\/a><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.rsvplive.ie \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Jennifer is a natural on live television but admits hosting Dancing With The Stars was ‘quite a scary thing’ when she first took over from original host Amanda Byram Jennifer Zamparelli backstage at Dancing With The Stars(Image: Instagram\/dwtsirl) Jennifer Zamparelli admits she struggled badly with nerves in the early days of hosting Dancing With The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2400276,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[41508,432599,388870],"class_list":["post-2400275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-dancing-with-the-stars","tag-jennifer-zamparelli","tag-rte"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Jennifer-Zamparelli-admits-her-biggest-struggle-in-early-days-of.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2400275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2400275"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2400275\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2400277,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2400275\/revisions\/2400277"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2400276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2400275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2400275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2400275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}