Giuliana Rancic of Giuliana & Bill is back for a second season of their reality show in South Africa on The Style Network (DStv 183), Mondays at 21:00.
I spoke with Giuliana on whether there's any baby news, her fear of flying and what she has learned from doing her own reality show. She told me how she manages to fit everything in her hectic diary, how she and Bill discovered who some of their real friends are, and some of the exciting changes coming to E! News on E! Entertainment in the year ahead.
For my complete interview with the lovely Giuliana Rancic click on READ MORE below.
Any baby news to share exclusively here first with the whole world?
[She laughs.] I wish I could tell you but my network would kill me if I revealed anything. Very soon we'll now and then finally we'll be able to talk about it. We got more twitters and emails from people wanting to know and so I feel bad that I can't say anything.
When did the second season of Giuliana & Bill start filming?
We started shooting about September 2009 and it's been really good. We've been having a great time. This season has been definitely a lot funnier and more enjoyable than last season – which I didn't think was possible because we had such a great time. This is a really, really fun season.
What have you learned from being in a reality show?
You know, I've learned – it's funny – you learn a big lesson about ''Hollywood''. The hardest part was more about friends and family. It is kind of amazing, you have friends and sometimes they get very touchy. You're friends say ''Oh I want to be on it'' and then they shoot a scene with you, and then they watch it and then they call you and go, ''I don't like the way I look''. Or ''I only had one minute and I was there for the whole dinner''.
It's funny what you learn - you get to see people's true colours. It's interesting to see how family and friends react and behave. That was an eye-opener for us. Giuliana & Bill brought Bill and I closer together, it really helped us because it made us realize who is a genuine friend in our lives. That is something we just realized recently.
Giuliana & Bill is actually different in that it's not so shocking, but people love the show. When you said yes for cameras to follow you, what was your aim to show to viewers?
The big thing was to show people just who we were. Bill was on The Apprentice, I'm daily on E! News on E! Entertainment (DStv 1and people used to tell us that we have such a fun, cool marriage and that we should show it to people. I'm more open than Bill, and for me I love this business and my work is to interview celebrities and the people who watch me, if they want to know about my life, I would be a bit hypocritical not to show it to them – that's how I feel.
For us it was just letting people inside and letting them know who we are. I had to convince Bill to do that because I was more open to the idea. Now with the whole baby storyline now there is a whole other aspect of the show that people are going to like. It's definitely more personal, and more private. The things Bill and I are going through with trying to start a family and that sort of thing are things that people can really learn from. Now its not only about entertaining people, but also teaching them maybe a bit.
It's baffling how you fit everything in. How do you do it?
It's tough. Right now I'm sitting in between this interview and hair and make-up for E! News.
Then I have to run down and pack because right after E! News I'm jumping on a plane, flying to Chicago for one night, then I'm going to Mexico, then back to LA for two days. It's a whirlwind.
I'm truly on about four airplanes a week.
The way to do it is you just have to stuck it up and do it. It's not glamorous, it's not fun, but at the end of the day, our goal is to work as hard as we can, save up as much money as possible, accomplish as much as we can now, so we can have the freedom when we're older to enjoy our kids and not have to slave away as we do now, and not be on a plane four days a week working. Vitamins B and trying to stay healthy. In addition to trying to look good it gives me energy otherwise I would be exhausted doing this.
You are a bit scared of flying, right? How do you handle flying and where does the fear come from?
It's hard. The flying is very hard for me. It's still hard. I've been scared of airplanes since I was a little girl. When I was little we had an emergency landing when we were flying from Italy to America so I just have definitely had that fear and there's nothing I can do about it – it's a part of my job and there's no way around it. I just put it in God's hands. I try to sleep before we take off. Which never works. My secret is to have a glass of wine before we take off and I try to exhaust before getting on the plane so I can sleep a little bit.
I have rituals I do. I say a prayer on the runway as we take off, I drink my glass of wine and on my way in the airplane I always look at the pilots and ask them how they're doing and ask ''How's it looking up there today? Are you going to get us there safely?'' so that they know when they're up there, there's this really scared little girl right in the back who's life is depending on them. I'm very superstitious – I think it's the Italian in me, and I feel that as long as I follow my rituals I'll be safe up there in the sky.
What can viewers look forward to in the year for E! News? American Idol is on here on M-Net at the same time as there in America, with of course E! News coverage on TV.
We had a meeting recently about taking E! News to the next level. We will be premiering a new set, so Ryan Seacrest and I will be on a brand-new set and they're working on that right now. We're in the final stages of that.
E! News will also be more interactive. We will be more able to take stories that we feel the viewers want. It will be a bit more flee-flowing. And more with Twitter and Facebook we're able to communicate with people a lot more and will incorporate a lot more viewers into the show. And just always stayingtrue to the celebrities we report on – the Britney Spears' and Jude Law's and Sienna Millers.
Giuliana & Bill, Mondays, The Style Network (DStv 183), 21:00
