Vanessa Lachey Taking On First Lead Television Role In ‘Dads’

Vanessa Lachey is ready to take on her first big television role this fall in the new Fox series Dads.

Lachey has a lot of on-air time under her belt, but until now most of it has been in a hosting capacity. She was the host of MTV’s Total Request Live from 2003 to 2007, and also served as a New York correspondent on Entertainment Tonight from 2005 to 2007.

While she’s had appearances in a number of shows, including Psych and How I Met Your Mother, Vanessa Lachey had never scored a lead role. Until now, that is.

She is set to star as Camilla in the show Dads, which premieres this week. The series was originally part of a development slate for Fox in September 2012, but in January the network announced that it would bypass the pilot order and green-light the show for six episodes.

In May there was more good news for the show — Fox decided to extend the episode order to 13 episodes.

Vanessa Lachey was actually a late addition to the cast. She plays Camilla, the wife of one of the show’s “dads,” Warner, but the role was originally suppose to go to actress Erin Pineda. In late March Fox announced that it was making some cast changes, with Lachey taking over the role of Camilla and Giovanni Ribisi replacing Thomas Dewey in the role of Warner.

The series also has some familiar faces at Fox. Seth MacFarlane, the creator of Family Guy and its spinoffs, serves as executive producer along with fellow Family Guy producer Alec Sulkin.

Vanessa Lachey makes her big screen debut in Dads on Tuesday at 8 pm EST on Fox.