Janette Manrara has spoken for the first time about how she really felt after missing out on the Strictly Come Dancing hosting job before leaving the show.
The latest series of the BBC One dance competition officially began on Saturday night (September 26) with new hosts Emma Willis, Josh Widdicombe and Johannes Radebe at the helm, following the previous weekend's pre-recorded launch show.
Janette's husband Aljaz Skorjanec was among the returning professional dancers for the 2026 series and has been paired with Gavin & Stacey actress Melanie Walters.
Cheering on Aljaz
As for Janette, the dancer-turned-presenter said she would be cheering Aljaz on as he returned to the ballroom, writing on Instagram ahead of the airing of the pre-recorded launch show: "Have an amazing series my love! You are and always will be what the heart and soul of @bbcstrictly is all about. I could not be prouder of all the beautiful years of joy you have brought every Saturday night to so many. Lyra and I will be cheering you on all the way!"
Janette joined Strictly in 2013 as a professional dancer before leaving in 2020. The following year, she took over from Zoe Ball as host of It Takes Two, alongside Rylan Clark and then Fleur East.
Leaving It Takes Two
Amid a number of changes to Strictly ahead of the next run, Janette confirmed in June that she had left the spin-off series in a video posted on her YouTube account.
She said at the time: "Strictly Come Dancing has changed hugely, and I am no longer a part of It Takes Two or the main show. I'll still be involved in other ways. But that just means that I'm free to pursue and do many other projects that I've always wanted to do and never really thought about doing. Strictly is all I've known for the last 14 years, so it is a bit like, 'Oh, we're going into a different world, a different space, how are we going to navigate that?'"
Biggest rejection
Now, Janette has shared how she feels about missing out on the Strictly hosting gig. Speaking to Jamie Laing on The Great Company podcast, she said: "Jamie, I just went through the biggest rejection of my career if I'm honest. And I had to remind myself, oddly enough, of how I felt when that happened when I was 23 because with Strictly Come Dancing, I hosted It Takes Two and there was a journey there that I thought was going to come for me and come my way.
"I was in the chemistry tests and I did really well in the chemistry tests. At least that's what I was told. So I assumed I did a great job and it was fascinating to kind of obviously didn't get the job, and they went elsewhere."
She continued: "But I remember coming home, and it was a really hard pill to swallow because I've read recently that in life, you work really hard and you put everything into something and it looks like it should be yours and you feel like you deserve it and yes, maybe you feel you deserve it, but no one is owed anything in life.
"You know, that entitlement does not belong to me to feel like I'm owed a job or a position or a spot in a show or whatever. But the honesty of going through that heartache that I went through when I was 23, I felt it again now at 42.
"And it just goes to show you that life really does flow like waves. You have ups and downs, and you have moments, and it's never going to be smooth sailing. And sometimes I felt like I was able to cope with this rejection better because I had felt a level of rejection. And then that was when I was 23, but there was lots more after that.
"But I was better prepared to cope with it because I understood, okay, I'm going to grieve. I'm going to be sad, and I'm going to be absolutely gutted, but eventually I will come out the other side, and I will look back and be like, everything happens for a reason."
