RTÉ hopes for on-screen chemistry as Pippa joins Brian on lottery show

Model Pippa O’Connor has revealed she is delighted to be joining husband Brian Ormond on RTÉ as Ireland’s first TV couple.

The pair co-host the National Lottery’s Big Money Game on Saturday night on RTÉ One.

She said yesterday on Tubridy that she is delighted they are scoring a television first in Ireland with their small screen debut.

“It’s something I have wanted for ages. I’m really excited about it. It’s something I’ve been thinking about. I’m going to run with this and hopefully do a good job.”

They are only appearing together for one night on the show as Brian’s usual co-host Sinéad Kennedy has to attend a wedding.

However, it is thought RTÉ are testing out the couple’s on-screen chemistry with their appearance on the primetime slot.

The couple have been on screen together before when they took part in Celebrity Bainisteoir and starred in their own reality TV show Brian and Pippa Get Married which followed their wedding preparations in 2011.

Pippa said: “I know Kathleen [Watkins], Gay Byrne’s wife, introduced the contestants on The Rose of Tralee. That is the closest maybe... I’m thankful that Sinéad is busy in that I get to stand in for one night.”

Meanwhile, she said the couple have been practicing their double act at home.

“I’m worried about messing up my lines and reading autocue. But I’m comfortable enough with it.

“We’ve done it a couple of times at home reading the script in my pyjamas on the couch. Then Brian says ‘Don’t say it like this. Say it like that’. And then we have a fight,” she joked.

Pippa also opened up about the emotional rollercoaster of becoming a first-time mother after the arrival of her son Ollie four months ago.

“From my own experience some days I feel great and then other days you just feel absolutely knackered. It’s exhausting sometimes — most of the time.”

She said the first three months were more tiring as she breast-fed.

“Thankfully most of the time it’s fine for me but at the start when he was really small and very demanding and I was still feeding him myself, that was hard.

“He was feeding on demand. It was sometimes every hour or hour-and-a-half and some days I just felt like crying. He’s just a big baby. He took loads to be full. It’s all part of it and all fun and you just have to not stress out and try and go with the flow and get as much help as possible.

Meanwhile she said she has no secret to her shedding her baby weight.

“I haven’t done one single thing since having him. That is the truth. I have no secret. I was relatively healthy throughout. I ate well. I have a sweet tooth and I gave it back up the last two months of the pregnancy.”