Carl Mullan has hit back at claims being on RTÉ 2FM “advantaged” him in Dancing with the Stars.
The 2FM Breakfast host won the 2023 series of the RTÉ show on Sunday night alongside his pro dance partner Emily Barker.
Speaking after the final, Carl was asked if he thinks having a popular radio show with thousands of listeners advantaged him in the competition.
The 33-year-old replied: “I don’t know if it gives you an advantage. If it gave you an advantage, you wouldn’t be doing 10 hours of rehearsals every single day. I didn’t go into this thinking about winning, or being on the top of the leaderboard.”
“I just wanted to go out and give the best performance possible because you don’t want to go on TV and make a show of yourself… We could not have put more work into this, we have worked so hard. That’s what I’m proudest of.”
Carl also responded to those who are “disappointed” that he won the show, instead of one of his co-stars – Glee star Damian McGinty, Eurovision singer Brooke Scullion, and influencer Suzanne Jackson.
He said: “I will be the first to say, I know that technically they were incredible dancers. They were technically better than me a lot of weeks.”
“Don’t get me wrong, there’s weeks that I’m really, really happy with how I performed and there’s weeks that I feel we did an incredible job and were as good as anyone in the competition. So it’s not that I’m talking myself down here, but I absolutely acknowledge how brilliant [Brooke, Damian and Suzanne] were.”
“The thing about a show like this is you get invested in people, and I’m sure there’s people that are disappointed that Brooke or Damian or Suzanne haven’t won. Similarly, had we not one there would’ve been people who would’ve been disappointed if we didn’t win.”