Oti Mabuse joined Dancing with the Stars this year as head judge. And she has brought a breath of fresh air to the judging panel.
The former Strictly Come Dancing professional took over from Loraine Barry and she is not afraid to dole out the tough scores, alongside some gorgeous commentary.
The professional dancer is no stranger to travel, having grown up in South Africa, lived in Germany and has now made her base in London.
“I get the best of both worlds,” she tells VIP Magazine about her new role, as she splits her time between London and Dublin until the show ends in mid-March.
“We love working. We love being here. I’m so appreciative, and I’m I feel like I don’t take any moment for granted.”
She jokes that in the two days that she is away, it’s enough for her to get home sick.
“That’s enough to make me miss home and miss the baby. Finding the balance, finding the scheduling, finding the priorities. What do I prioritise? That for me is very important. For me, it’s family, then my marriage, then work. And that’s how I plan my weeks.”
She welcomed her first child with her husband, Marius Iepure, in 2023. And she juggles head judge duties, with being a toddler mam, who brings her little one to gymnastics and swimming during the week, as well as appearing on the Loose Women panel.
She brings a new prespective to the judging panel, just like Karen Byrne, Oti knows what it is like to be on that dancefloor week after week as a pro-dancer.
“We were working five days a week with the celebrity, And then we perform on on Saturday and Sunday. Here, it’s really different. I am mom five days a week, and then I fly out and I get to do the show over the weekend. In terms of my perspective, it’s completely different, but the show was very much the same,” she shares.
And she feels like she can bring an extra layer of her judging because of her background.
She says: “I understand the experience I’m able to come from a position where I judge the way I wish I would have been judged. I don’t want you to tell me what I did wrong, I want you to tell me in your kind of third opinion or third eye. How can I make my celebrity better?
“And acknowledging the professionals because they don’t get a day off. Even when you go home, you can’t stop thinking about it. You’re always correcting. It’s high pressure if they don’t well, you’re constantly blaming yourself. I’m coming from that world where I know every single one of them has put in so much work.
“There’s also a team behind them that we don’t generally always see or spoken about, and that team as well would have worked really, really hard, and so I acknowledge the pros.”
One surprising hobby Oti has taken up during her time here, is learning Irish.
“I have three people who drive me to the studio and there’s one called PJ. What I noticed was that when I got to Ireland, there were always two things that were written on the signs on the street and in the airport. It’s always written first in Irish and then in English, and I couldn’t pronounce it,” she explains.
“I was asking him all these cliche American things of how to say, and he’s, like, ‘Please don’t say that, don’t come on the show and say top of the morning to you.’ I was like, ‘I thought, that’s what Irish people do.’ He’s like, ‘Do not say that’, and I was, like, okay, tell me what to say.
“And then he started teaching me how to say, ‘Dia Duit and conas atá tú?’ and we just kept going. I see him once or twice a month and he teaches me one new thing. I love languages, so I thought this would be great language to learn.”
We’re truly obsessed!
Dancing with the Stars returns Sunday, 6:30pm on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player.
