EXCLUSIVEFox News icon Jeanine Pirro reveals her behind-the-scenes secrets from the Judge's love life, to her greatest fears... and the secret prop nobody can see on TV

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If spinning plates were an Olympic sport, Judge Jeanine Pirro would be a gold medalist. She is a study in perpetual motion – never doing just one thing when several can be tackled at once.

By mid-afternoon on any given weekday, Pirro, 73 – who for the last three years has been a co-host of the Fox News Channel’s number one rated show, The Five – can be found prepping ahead of airtime in her plush office in News Corp’s midtown Manhattan headquarters.

The Daily Mail has been granted exclusive access to this inner sanctum, where the soft edges of designer clothing and scented candles act as a foil to the judge’s hard news sense and straight talking.

The result is an extraordinarily candid, and at times poignant, interview where no question is off limits, as the hard-charging Pirro allowed us a rare glimpse of the woman behind the legend, revealing her deepest fear and the one thing still missing from her life.

‘Don’t get old,’ she tells me from across her capacious oak desk, its surface cluttered with the ephemera of today’s show.

Research notes jostle for space alongside a small case of jewelry ready for her to select items ahead of filming, coffee cups and scattered liquorice candies that have tumbled out of their box and are offered to all who step into the judge’s domain.

‘Some people dream of stopping. I worry if there comes a day when maybe I can’t do it.

‘I enjoy it all. Think about it, you’re on top of every issue. I’m 24/7. I always have been. Even as a young mother raising little kids, running for office, being the DA – I was running a home, never stopping.’

If spinning plates were an Olympic sport, Judge Jeanine Pirro would be a gold medalist. She is a study in perpetual motion – never doing just one thing when several can be tackled at once. (Pictured: Pirro getting her makeup and hair done whilst checking her phone).

By mid-afternoon on any given weekday, Pirro, 73 – who for the last three years has been a co-host of the Fox News Channel’s number one rated show, The Five – can be found prepping ahead of airtime in her plush office in News Corp’s midtown Manhattan headquarters.

As Pirro speaks she is sitting at her desk, curlers in her hair. Her make-up is immaculate, and her birdlike frame dressed in a cornflower blue Dior pantsuit. Designer outfits hang along the length of one wall – suits by Valentino, Alexander McQueen, Chanel and more. Beneath them dozens of pairs of shoes, spike heeled pumps, are set out in serried ranks.

A huge presence on screen, it is only when you meet the judge in person that you realize just how diminutive she is. A smidge over five feet tall, on set she sits on a booster cushion to elevate her to her co-host’s eye-level.

Producers and team members come in and out of her office as we talk. A manila folder lies open on the desk before her, with page after page of research spilling out. Two large yellow legal pads on which she scribbles meticulous longhand notes in both red and black ink sit next to it.

She reflects, ‘If I don’t want to do all this anymore, then I’m good, but that’s not who I am. I mean, even in high school I skipped the last year because I was in a rush to get to law school. I absolutely fear the moment this all stops and that motivates me.’

Pirro’s energy is infectious – perhaps a byproduct of her lifelong commitment to fitness. She frequently posts images post-workout, lying on a gym floor, her dogs happily lapping at her face.

But, she admits, her body doesn’t feel the way it used to.

‘It’s terrible. I have a trainer. We do lots of weights, but my body is more sensitive now – I can’t do the things that I used to. So, the knee hurts, the ankle hurts…it is very frustrating.

That said, Pirro also has gratitude for her rich and busy life.

‘I have balance,’ she says. ‘I have my dogs (standard poodle rescues Stella, Ted and Red and Berne doodle, Snickerdoodle). I have my family. My son is getting married in June and I have my wonderful grandson, Cameron, who is three and loves to come to his Tata’s house.’

A huge presence on screen, it is only when you meet the judge in person that you realize just how diminutive she is. A smidge over five feet tall, on set she sits on a booster cushion (seen here) to elevate her to her co-host’s eye-level.

Pirro reflects, ‘If I don’t want to do all this anymore, then I’m good, but that’s not who I am. I mean, even in high school I skipped the last year because I was in a rush to get to law school. I absolutely fear the moment this all stops and that motivates me.’

Pirro’s energy is infectious – perhaps a byproduct of her lifelong commitment to fitness. She frequently posts images post-worked, lying on a gym floor, her dogs happily lapping at her face.

Though still, she concedes, there is something missing,

‘I have been divorced for 14, 15 years and I have dated. I’ve had many fabulous men that I’ve dated. Fabulous. But whether I’ve changed or they’ve changed, it hasn’t worked out.

‘It’s interesting - you want to go to dinner; you want to go to the opera…I had two black tie events – one was at the New York Plaza; one was at the New York Public Library.

‘And you know when you go alone you wear like a business suit. You know, you wear a Dior or a McQueen. But I would like to put on a pretty dress and go with someone.’

‘I would like to be feminine and not be the tough girl all the time. I mean there are lots of sides to me. I’m not seeking a relationship but I’m open to one, isn’t that the best way to be?’

And just like that it is time for Pirro to get to the set, with that question left hanging in the air.

Down in The Five’s studio at Fox News HQ on Sixth Avenue and 48th street, Pirro sits in her boosted-chair scrolling on her phone, sourcing new light-fittings for her Westchester home as she sits in the make-up chair for final touches.

Her assistant runs over her schedule for the rest of the week as she selects her jewelry and picks which color of mic goes best with her suit and her Alexander Bergman shoes.

And for the next hour Pirro will do what Pirro does best – trade jabs, comic asides and astute observations with her co-hosts, Dana Perino, Greg Gutfeld, Brian Kilmeade and Jessica Tarlov as they discuss the topics of the day.

She admits, ‘I never dreamed of being on television, but I used it a lot as a DA doing press conferences all the time. For me, it was always about the victims and always about the fight for them – whatever platform served that best I was going to do, so that’s how it started.’

But however it all began, she tells the Daily Mail, it’s her sense of an ending, the deep knowledge that none of this will last forever, that has been transmuted across the years into that almost insatiable ‘fight’ - the driving force for a stellar career characterized by firsts.

Born in Elmira, New York, the daughter of Lebanese American parents Pirro knew she wanted to be a lawyer from the age of six. The fictional TV criminal defense attorney, Perry Mason, was, she says, her inspiration.

Fresh out of Albany Law School she was appointed Westchester County’s Assistant District Attorney in 1975 and within two years had approached her boss, DA Carl Vergari, to urge him to apply for federal funding to establish a bureau specializing in domestic violence cases.

The resulting department was the first of its kind in the country. Pirro recalls, ‘Back then battered women were not considered real victims of crime. The police would say to them, “Go to your mother’s and tell him to take a walk.” As a society, we would consider domestic violence a social problem and not a criminal justice problem.’

She says, ‘People always say to me, “Did you experience it? Someone in your family?” But no - my mother loved my father; my father loved my mother. We had none of that. But it was my mission. My crusade.’

It was the opening salvo in a legal career during which Pirro frequently challenged the accepted norms. Early in her career, she states, she was told ‘women can’t prosecute homicide cases…they can’t go for the jugular.’

She says, ‘So when I prosecuted my first homicide case, I realized there were young women behind me, and I had to win.’

Pirro repeatedly references her sense of this duty to the women who followed in her wake. She was not a trailblazer who pulled up the ladder behind her but rather one who extended her hand down in help.

In 1990, she was appointed the first female judge in Westchester County. She was on the bench for three years before she decided, she says, ‘I don’t belong here.’

Her assistant runs over her schedule for the rest of the week as she selects her jewelry and picks which color of mic goes best with her suit and her Alexander Bergman shoes.

Born in Elmira, New York, the daughter of Lebanese American parents Pirro knew she wanted to be a lawyer from the age of six. The fictional TV criminal defense attorney, Perry Mason, was, she says, her inspiration.

Pirro repeatedly references her sense of this duty to the women who followed in her wake. She was not a trailblazer who pulled up the ladder behind her but rather one who extended her hand down in help.

She explains, ‘I loved being a judge, but I realized I was really a referee, and my nature is a fighter. That’s why I ran for DA.’

She smiles, ‘I was perfect as a DA. I just loved to fight. When I ran for that office, I had to do a press conference with my then husband, who was furious about it at the time. I had to convince people that I would have enough time to take care of my children, because I had little kids.

‘Now, the fact that I was running against a guy who had three kids and whose wife was pregnant with a fourth, they could care less about.’

Did that anger her? ‘It annoyed the s**t out of me,’ she says, ‘but I have the ability to channel my anger in a way where, all right, let’s make this work. You know? I’m going to make this work. I’m going to get in there and I’m going to take care of women and I’m going to take care of children. I’m going to take care of victims.’

She was elected in November 1993 and again in 1997 and 2001 before announcing, in May 2005, that she would not be seeking re-election.

Instead, she turned to politics. In August 2005 she embarked on a short-lived run at the Republican nomination to challenge Hillary Clinton in the Senate before dropping out that December.

In 2006 she ran for Attorney General but was beaten by Andrew Cuomo. The day after her defeat she got a call from Warner Brothers, she says, offering her a television show.

Her initial reaction was one of disbelief, she admits, ‘I said, “Why would you want me on television?”’

Her daily show, ‘Judge Jeanine Pirro’ debuted in 2008 and would go onto win a daytime Emmy for Outstanding Legal/Courtroom Program in 2011. It was cancelled that same year by which time Pirro had already inked a deal with Fox for her hit show, ‘Justice with Judge Jeanine.’

But just as her professional life took an unexpected turn, so too did her homelife.

Instead, she turned to politics. In August 2005 she embarked on a short-lived run at the Republican nomination to challenge Hillary Clinton in the Senate before dropping out that December.

In 2006 she ran for Attorney General but was beaten by Andrew Cuomo. The day after her defeat she got a call from Warner Brothers, she says, offering her a television show.

Her daily show, ‘Judge Jeanine Pirro’ debuted in 2008 and would go onto win a daytime Emmy for Outstanding Legal/Courtroom Program in 2011. It was cancelled that same year by which time Pirro had already inked a deal with Fox for her hit show, ‘Justice with Judge Jeanine.’

Back in February 1999 Pirro’s then husband, Albert, 77, the father of her two children Christi, 34, and Alex, 35, was indicted on one count of conspiracy, four counts of tax evasion and 28 counts of filing a false tax return for hiding over $1million in personal income as business expenses.

He was found guilty of 23 of the charges and spent 17 months in prison before being released early for good behavior and participation in an alcoholism treatment program, but the marriage did not survive the tumult. The couple separated in 2007 and finalized their divorce in 2013.

There can be no doubt that Pirro’s career and profile has gone from strength to strength – she has authored multiple books, both non-fiction and fiction and is an on-screen fixture in households across the country. And from this reporter’s perspective, there are no outward signs of slowing down.

When Pirro does get home, she says, she’ll be up until 2am going through emails. Because one day, she knows, all this will stop.