Each year, sometimes twice a year, hundreds of thousands of people vie for a very few coveted spots on The Biggest Loser. At most, two dozen people are selected for the most exclusive weight loss experience in the world.
For the upcoming fourteenth season, there were 18 spots open. Danielle Allen, or Danni, was lucky enough to grab one of those spots. And we were lucky enough to grab Danni, as she’ll assume the role of Biggest Loser Correspondent during this new season.
“Whether we made it or not, we knew this was going to be our starting point. I never thought I was going to make it because the casting was so fast,” Danni told us of her casting experience with a friend. She talked with casting directors at an open audition and headed home, like so many other hopefuls just like her.
“But then, that night, I got a phone call saying they wanted me! I was shocked! A lot of paperwork later and I was on my way to to the ranch.”
Call it luck, right place at the right time, or fate, but this was just the next step in a journey she’d already committed to.
Last February, the 26-year old spent a month in the hospital sitting next to an ICU bed. It wasn’t hers, but that of her father.
“We didn’t think he was going to make it,” she recalled. He had a weight-related illness that hospitalized him. During his stay, he turned 50.
“I saw myself in him and I knew that that was not what I wanted. I knew he did this to himself and I did not want to one day spend my own 50th birthday in a hospital. I knew I had to make a change.” (more…)
