Lottie Ryan opens up on why working through the RTÉ payments scandal was so difficult, declares who the most judgmental group on social media are... and reveals the heartbreaking reason why she doesn't suffer trolls

Like thousands of parents across the country this week, Lottie Ryan discovered that no amount of preparation can quite prepare you for leaving your child at the door of Junior Infants.

When the moment came for Lottie and husband Fabio to wave their little boy Wolf goodbye, there were tears – and, yes, they were Lottie’s.

‘I was full-on bawling,’ she admits. ‘By the time I had got to the car, I’d burst into tears two or three times. I’m one of those criers where, whether it’s one tear or a million tears, my face goes bright red and I swell up.’

Wolf, meanwhile, has taken the milestone in his stride – and no one is more relieved than his mum. 

It’s a surprise to learn that the broadcaster, whose confidence and vivacity have long been part of her public persona, says she was a painfully shy child who had a miserable experience when she started school.

‘I was not a social child, I was really bad, painfully shy,’ she says. ‘So I’ve really worked on that with Wolf, how to make friends and be kind to people. I’m trying to be really conscious of all those things.

‘He has come flying out every day. He’s happy,’ she says, the relief evident in her voice.

As timing would have it, his mother is preparing to become the new girl herself. After more than 15 years at RTÉ, Lottie has left the broadcaster to join Brian Dowling as co-presenter of Virgin Media’s The Six O’Clock Show.

‘So now myself and Wolf are starting our new journeys and we’ve spoken about that.

‘The other day he said, “Mommy, how was Virgin Media?” I said, “Oh, it’s really good”. And he said, “Did you make a friend?”’ she laughs.

It’s safe to say it’s been an emotional month for Lottie – as signing off from 2FM was never going to be simply a matter of clearing out a drawer. 

RTÉ has been woven into her family life since before she could remember, through her late father Gerry, who joined Radio 2 when it launched in 1979.

He went on to become one of Ireland’s best-known broadcasters before his death in 2010, aged 53.

‘I was breastfed in the RTÉ canteen when dad was working on his late night show,’ Lottie laughs. ‘I’m working there 15 years, but really, it holds a lifetime of memories for me.’

Only as her departure approached did she fully realise what leaving Montrose would bring up for her – and her whole family. 

‘My mum came over and put flowers down at my dad’s plaque [in Montrose] and did a little walk around on her own because she obviously feels a connection,’ she reveals.

‘She’d come in for coffee with me the odd time when I was working and probably feels she won’t be doing that any more. She needed to say her goodbyes as well. There is an element of grief, I suppose, but it’s nice to be able to put that down in a way.’

The most difficult part for her is leaving her colleagues, who have been beside her through almost every defining event of her adult life.

‘These are the people I worked with during Covid,’ she says. ‘I got engaged, I got married, I got pregnant and became a mum. All these big things that happened in my life happened there.’

When Gerry died 16 years ago, Lottie was working as entertainment correspondent on The Daily Show on RTÉ, presented by Claire Byrne and Dáithí Ó Sé. ‘At that time, I didn’t want anything to do with radio,’ she says. ‘But within a year, the universe had other plans.’

Although she is leaving the building that has played such an enormous role in her life, Lottie knows she is not leaving under a cloud.

‘‘I’m very lucky that my goodbye is filled with good feelings,’ she says. 

‘I’m not walking away because there was some big fight or something terrible happened, an opportunity came and I had to leave. That is a wonderful way to be leaving.’

Looking back, one of the highlights of her RTÉ career was presenting Breakfast Republic with Bernard O’Shea and Keith Walsh.

‘We just had the best fun with a wonderful team – that was a huge high,’ she says.

She also loved taking part in and subsequently winning Dancing With The Stars in 2020. She later stepped in to co-present the show with Nicky Byrne when Jennifer Zamparelli had Covid.

‘It was very last-minute, but it was a big box-ticking moment for me,’ she says. ‘As was winning,’ she smiles.

But her years at RTÉ were not all glitterballs and early-morning laughs. In 2023, amid the broadcaster’s payments controversy, Lottie parted company with her then-agent Noel Kelly. 

She also came under intense public scrutiny after filming promotional content for a car in the Montrose grounds.

Asked about that difficult period, she chooses her words carefully.

‘I can only speak from my own experience, but that whole time greatly affected the morale of everybody,’ she says. 

‘There was suddenly a massive magnifying glass over everyone. I understand that the public was getting headlines, but for us, we still had a day-to-day job to do.

‘We still had to rock in, smile, entertain people and bring them a bit of levity from life. We were doing so under a cloud of smoke, it felt like, and that’s not easy. 

'In that kind of job, when you have to go in and slap on a painted face, you trick yourself into getting on with life. I think everybody in the radio centre dealt with it incredibly stoically.’

Indeed, when it comes to dealing with public attention, Lottie admits she has strict boundaries. 

‘A lot of newer people in the industry can fall into looking at comments and reading things that could be deeply upsetting about themselves, allowing keyboard warriors into their brain space,’ she says of online criticism. 

‘I really was brought up to not even look. But that does mean you don’t see the good either.

‘I was bullied horrifically in secondary school and I’ve no intention of allowing it to happen to me again with people I’ve never even met.

‘I care about the opinions of my family and my colleagues, and that’s it. If I’ve never met you and you don’t know me, or you’ve never taken the time to understand me, I really don’t care what you have to say about me. So I just don’t look.’

Yet even someone skilled at shutting out unsolicited opinions has discovered that once you become a mother, it’s a different ballgame.

‘Honestly, I’ve never come across a more judgmental group,’ she says. ‘I will never not be shocked by what people think it is OK to say.’

She reveals people’s comments have ranged from questions about why she was not breastfeeding to observations that she had ‘left it a bit late’ to have another baby.

In the past, Lottie would laugh off such remarks. Now, as she approaches 41, she says she is more inclined to answer honestly.

‘I say, “I actually had a really traumatic pregnancy and birth, so I don’t know if I’m physically or mentally capable of doing it again”,’ she says. 

‘Then the person gets very awkward and looks as if they can’t believe I’ve just said that. And it’s like, well, I can’t believe you said it to me. It’s so much easier to lift each other up and be kind, but there seems to be a default position of judgment. Nobody knows a child better than that child’s parent.’

Turning 40, however, brought a change in how much judgment she is willing to tolerate. 

‘Something happens where you just stop giving a f***,’ she says. ‘I feel the most comfortable I ever have. These things come with time and age – and what a privilege that is.’

Her advice for sustaining a relationship is equally direct. Lottie and her Italian husband Fabio Aprile have been together for more than two decades and married in 2017. 

‘Laugh in the good times, the bad times, all of it,’ she says. ‘You have to be able to laugh. He’s a great cook too, so that helps. I hit the jackpot there.’

Speaking of jackpots, Lottie is thrilled about her new work husband, Brian Dowling, who she first got to know when they competed in the same series of DWTS.

‘I adore Brian,’ she says. ‘I think he is the consummate professional. He’s amazing to work with. The team in general have been so welcoming and incredibly supportive and kind.’

While the decision to leave RTÉ was one of the most difficult she has had to make ‘because it affects all of us – my husband’s work hours, childcare, the lot’ – not to mention leaving her great pals, Lottie knew this was the right move. ‘I knew I had to do it, it was just a question of how to make it work,’ she says.

Performance is in her blood, and she feels radio and television are stages in their own right. ‘You become addicted to the feeling of making people happy, providing levity and sprinkling a little bit of glitter on things that would otherwise be very dull,’ she says. ‘Like I probably feel most comfortable on a stage anyway.’

Entertainment is in her blood – her paternal grandmother Maureen was heavily involved in theatre and dance, while her brother Rex is an actor and founder of Glass Mask Theatre. She also presents a podcast, No One Else Will Listen, with her younger sister Bonnie, who lives in New York with her husband John Greenhalgh and their newborn daughter Winnie. She admits taking some sisterly solace in Bonnie’s new understanding of the newborn months.

‘There is nothing more satisfying than your little sister sending you messages saying, “I’m so sorry I never checked in on you, I didn’t realise how difficult sleep deprivation was”,’ she says. ‘I’m like, “Babe, yes – keep it coming”,’ she laughs.

But sibling banter aside, it’s clear Lottie loves flexing her muscle in this audio world too.

‘The landscape of audio has changed, and we are in a world of streaming and podcasts,’ she says. ‘I think it’s difficult for radio stations to figure out how to compete, but part of the fun is in figuring it all out. I think 2FM have an incredible line-up at the moment and I wish them nothing but the best going forward.’

• The fourth season of No One Else Will Listen is now available on Spotify, Apple and other podcast platforms. New episodes every Tuesday