Trotta was born and raised in Westchester County, New York. She is the daughter of Phyllis and Dan Trotta, and has one younger sister, Andrea. Her family moved to Richmond, Indiana when Trotta was ten years old, and before she started high school, moved to Carmel for business reasons. Trotta started her career in television while she attended Carmel High School by working for the school's 24-hour local channel as a host and presenter between 1995 and 1999. She also took part in three consecutive statewide championships in swimming, diving and springboard diving. Trotta enrolled in four colleges along the East Coast before she graduated from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte with a degree in Mass Journalism. During her period in college, Trotta had interships with television stations with Indianapolis and with Charlotte, North Carolina based stations WCNC-TV and WBTV. After graduation, she was hired as a weekend news editor for WBTV. Trotta started as a photographer, and later convinced the station's management to allow herself to be shown on television. She made her on-screen début in 2007, following the departure of Kricket Morton; Trotta additionally hosted Sports Saturday Night, and co-hosted The Point After with D&D with Delano Little on Sunday nights. She moved to the station's sports department in August 2006; She stated her favourite stories were those about high school athletes who overcame challenges on the playing field and in the local community. Trotta remained with WBTV until 2010, when she moved to Fox Sports in July. Despite leaving, WBTV won a Radio Television Digital News Association of the Carolinas award for a sports special program called First Class that she contributed to in October 2010. She also co-presented the ACC Network's pregame and half time show, The ACC Blizz, alongside football coach Tommy Bowden in 2011, and also wrote football columns for local newspaper Charlotte Weekly. Trotta was also a weekly contributor on NASCAR and ACC Football on Charlotte-based talk radio stationESPN 730. She was mentored by fellow Fox Sports employee Steve Byrnes. In 2012, Trotta moved into a co-host role, and presented Speed's coverage of that year's NASCAR Sprint Awards Ceremony from Las Vegas. She also hosted various specials devoted to NASCAR, along with Supercross and MotoGP events throughout 2014. Since 2015, Trotta has been the host of NASCAR RaceDay for Xfinity Series races, and in the same year, made her début as a sideline reporter for coverage of the game between the Arizona Cardinals and Cleveland Browns on Fox NFL. On February 13, 2017, Trotta tweeted that she would be leaving NASCAR Race Hub to pursue other opportunities. A few hours later a press conference was held to announce that Shannon Spake would take over Danielle's duties as co-host of NASCAR Race Hub and host of the Xfinity Series edition of NASCAR RaceDay on Saturdays. In 2019, Trotta joined NBC Sports’ NASCAR coverage as host of the “Victory Lap” post-race show for select Cup Series races.
