The Nigerian-Irish musician topped the leaderboard on Sunday night after performing the first Rumba of the season with partner Maciej Zi\u0119ba, dancing to Faith Hill\u2019s power ballad There You\u2019ll Be.<\/a><\/p>\n“I\u2019m so happy,” Makay told RT\u00c9 Entertainment. “When I said yes to Dancing with the Stars, it was because I knew this was the right time. Fun fact: this was actually the third time I\u2019d been asked to do the show.<\/p>\n
“But this time genuinely felt different. I had a bit more space and time, even though I\u2019m still gigging, and I was really looking for joy in 2026.”<\/p>\n
Watch: Tol\u00fc Makay and Maciej Zi\u0119ba perform a Rumba to Faith Hill’s power ballad There You’ll Be<\/p>\n
\n
She added with a laugh: “Honestly, my slogan before I even said yes – before I even knew I was doing Dancing with the Stars – was that 2026 was going to be the year of ‘shake my a**’.”<\/p>\n
Makay has emerged as one of Ireland’s most compelling musical voices, known for her soulful sound and deeply personal lyrics.<\/p>\n
From singing in church as a child to her viral rendition of the Saw Doctors\u2019 N17 with the RT\u00c9 Concert Orchestra, she has captivated audiences across the country.<\/p>\n
You can catch Dancing with the Stars on Sunday, 1 February, from 6:30pm on RT\u00c9 One and RT\u00c9 Player for Dedicated Dance Week.<\/p>\n
The couples will take to the floor to perform a routine in tribute to a person, or people, who have made a major impact on their lives.<\/p>\n
For more TV news, click here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Singer Tol\u00fc Makay has said 2026’s outing of Dancing with the Stars felt like the right fit, after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":266823,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[93,61,60,282],"class_list":{"0":"post-266822","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266822\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}