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Privacy NoticeJanette Manrara, Strictly Come Dancing legend and now bona fide author, interrupts our chat in a hushed whisper, gesturing at the floor. “Oh my gosh, would you look at that?” There, at her feet, is her beautiful one-year-old daughter, Lyra, curled into a little ball on the soft carpet, sleeping soundly. The tot, who Janette shares with her husband, Strictly pro Aljaž Škorjanec, has been impeccably behaved throughout our exclusive at-home shoot and, up until about 30 seconds before, was cooing and laughing with her doting mum. But as we settle down for a cuppa, Lyra’s out for the count. “She couldn’t even wait for her bed,” Janette, 40, laughs. “Too much excitement!” Indeed it’s been a whirlwind of a day – and month – for Janette, who has just released her new bookTiny Dancer Big World, a self-help manual of sorts that draws from her own life experiences.
Janette invited OK! into her gorgeous home
(Image: OK! Magazine / Nicky Johnston)
It’s an enlightening, emotional read and Janette, who was a pro dancer on the show between 2013 and 2021, doesn’t hold back when discussing some of the toughest times of her life. But there’s also a great deal of hope in her words, particularly when talking about Lyra, who she describes as her “biggest motivation to do good in the world”. It’s clear motherhood is her greatest achievement. “I just love it,” Janette says. “They always say that the next phase is the best one, but I’m loving right now. Lyra really knows I’m her mum. She calls me Mama, she repeats words. She knows how to say ‘happy’. She’s so magical and inquisitive. She’s a curious soul. I’m just enjoying the journey and watching her develop.” But like a lot of parents, Janette is trying to figure out how to be a working mum with no immediate family nearby. Her nearest and dearest are based in Miami, while Aljaž’s are in Slovenia. And things are about to get very hectic now Aljaž has become the first pro to return to the show, following his initial departure in 2022.
The professional dancer is loving motherhood
(Image: OK!/Nicky Johnston)
She and husband Aljaž are Strictly favourites
(Image: OK! Magazine / Nicky Johnston)
“It’s very difficult,” Janette admits. “We have no one to help, so it’s all about future planning as much as possible. It’s a massive juggle. Right now, Aljaž and I are trying to figure out how we’re going to make it work with him being back on Strictly full time. His schedule is basically seven days a week and the hours are here, there and everywhere. I know how hard it is doing Strictly, let alone doing it when you’re a parent. Lyra goes to nursery a couple of days a week, but planning childcare when Aljaž and I are both working and she is not in nursery can be very complicated; especially when we have no family around to help. “I’m planning every inch of our lives for the next few months. The most important thing is that she is comfortable and happy. I don’t want her to miss mummy or daddy too much in the midst of the madness.” We discuss whether her career ambitions ever got in the way of motherhood, but Janette reveals she and Aljaž put everything into having their beloved daughter. “Oh, I really put the foot on the brake to become a mother,” she explains. “I’m a dancer and my body is my tool. So the decision to have a child was a big one, because it meant putting me out of work for at least a year, maybe two, who knows? So when I became a presenter of It Takes Two, I felt like a massive weight had been lifted off my shoulders. OK, now we can start a family and not stress, because now I can work without needing my body physically as much as I used to. But I am a workaholic.
Juggling their careers with a family is tough
(Image: OK! Magazine / Nicky Johnston)
Aljaž is her “best friend” she tells OK!
(Image: OK! Magazine / Nicky Johnston)
“I love working because I love what I do. I did get nervous about becoming a mother because of that. But my mother was a working mum, my grandmother was a working mum, I grew up in a household where women always worked. And so I think in that way, I wasn’t scared of it either, because I knew I had such great examples of women in my own childhood who made it work.” After toying with the idea of IVF and prepping her body to start the process, Janette fell pregnant naturally at the end of 2022, after two years of trying. “I think there’s a magic in that,” she says now. “Relinquishing control and trusting the process and trusting the universe. We had the mindset of, ‘Look, we’ll try for IVF. If it happens, great, and if it doesn’t, then we’ll be happy just the two of us. We can adopt or we can get a dog, we’ll find other solutions.’ And having that mentality of letting go of the control brought us Lyra.” When speaking about 34-year-old Aljaž, who she married in 2017, Janette lights up. In the book, she describes him as “not just the love of my life; he’s my confidant, my partner in crime and my soulmate”.
(Image: OK! Magazine / Nicky Johnston)
“He’s my best friend,” she says now. “And I think because we’re friends before anything else, it works for us, at least. Every marriage is different. Every couple needs different things. Communicating with each other and talking to each other in the hard times and celebrating each other in the good times is crucial for us.” But it’s seeing Aljaž as a father that gave Janette a whole new perspective on her other half. “When he became a father to Lyra, I fell in love with him all over again,” she says. “I thought of my own dad, and how much I love my dad, and watching Aljaž with Lyra, I was just like, wow, he’s just an incredible father to her, which makes me love him in a whole different context.” Surely the couple have their differences, though? Not every part of marriage can be a fairy tale? Janette laughs. “I fell in love with him watching him dance,” she explains. “And, bizarrely, when we started dating, we started dancing together and that’s when we argued. The time we argue the most is when we dance together, really. But it’s only because we’re both perfectionists, and we’re passionate about dancing. He wants to do it one way, I want to do it another way. And now that he’s gone back on Strictly we’re not dancing together. So he sends me videos of rehearsals and what they’re doing. And I’m like, ‘I fancy you all over again!’”
She had been trying for a child for two years before falling naturally with Lyra
(Image: OK! Magazine / Nicky Johnston)
The passion of the professional dancers has come under the spotlight over the last few months, with two of them, Giovanni Pernice and Graziano Di Prima, both axed following complaints made by their celebrity dance partners. We probe Janette, who has presented spin-off show It Takes Two for three years, on what it’s been like seeing the show come under such scrutiny as it gears up for its 20th anniversary this month. “It absolutely hurts my heart,” she says, sadly. “It breaks my heart, because I know how hard everybody works to make it such a wonderful show. So when you see the headlines and the things that have come out, it does hurt. The whole team is like an extended family to us. I know first hand how hard every single one of them works to make that show. It’s honestly such a beautiful place to work. The people make it.” However, Janette stands with any victims and believes they should feel safe to speak about their experiences on the show, even when it differs from her own.
Janette reflected on her time in Strictly – and said it hurts to see the negative headlines
(Image: OK! Magazine / Nicky Johnston)
“I think it is important that if certain people have a certain experience, they feel safe enough to talk about it,” she says. “Nobody should feel like they’re not enjoying their experience on the show. Hopefully, now the steps have been put into place so it doesn’t happen again.” Janette and Aljaž both hope their time on Strictly will be remembered much more fondly. “Specifically, I can only speak from my experience – and Aljaž’s – and for us the priority has always been for our celebrities to enjoy themselves,” she says. “It’s probably why I never won! But I always wanted my celebrity to have the best time. Obviously, get them to dance well, get them to do good routines, but I wanted every single one of them to walk away and say, ‘Wow, that was amazing.’ There was a competitiveness to it for sure, but the number one priority is, it’s a television entertainment show. And that’s always been at the forefront of my mind.” Janette’s experience with the show hasn’t always been a bed of roses, however, and in her book, when she details some of the toughest times of her life, the first series she ever filmed crops up as an example.
She admits to suffering with imposter syndrome while on the show
(Image: OK! Magazine / Nicky Johnston)
“My first year on Strictly was very, very tough,” she recalls. “Not because of the show itself, it was just me, personally. I had imposter syndrome. I felt like I didn’t belong there. I’d just moved to a new country, I was in the dance-off every week, all those feelings of not being enough, doubting myself, feeling like an imposter in a new country, new job, new space, they were eating me up alive, you know? “And when Aljaž went off to do the live tour that year and I didn’t, I felt very lonely. So that was really tough to navigate. You get thrown into Strictly and you don’t know how big of a machine it is until you’re in it. And you have to hide the fact that you’re struggling. That was hard for me emotionally.”
Janette feels so bless and fortunate right now
(Image: OK! Magazine / Nicky Johnston)
Now, Janette is in a very different place and can’t wait to get feedback from fans about the book, something she’s clearly incredibly proud of. “This book is huge,” she beams. “It’s my first time writing, and I dipped my toes in, and I absolutely loved it. It was a hard but beautiful process. I hope that I can help people with this book. That’s the biggest, biggest thing for me; that if you read it, you take something from it that you can apply to your own life.” And what’s next for the busy presenter? “I’m so blessed and fortunate with my life and how it is at the moment,” she says. “The priority is my daughter being healthy and happy. My marriage is going well and I’m doing what I love for work. So more of the same, please! As long as life keeps going on this trajectory, I’ll be happy.” Tiny Dancer, Big World by Janette Manrara is out on the 12thSeptember, published by William CollinsStory SavedYou can find this story in My Bookmarks.Or by navigating to the user icon in the top right.Follow OK! MagazineFacebookTwitterCommentMore OnJanette Manrara
