Rachel Riley has made a brutally honest confession about her time on Strictly Come Dancing, admitting she never truly learned how to dance during her stint on the show. The Countdown presenter, who appeared in the eleventh series in 2013, said she merely learned how to 'hang on' each week.
Speaking on the Shoot Your Podcast, Riley was asked if she had mastered dancing. She replied: 'Absolutely not. No, you learn how to hang on, you don't have enough time to learn how to dance and I'd never danced.' She explained that her schedule was split between her Essex home, filming Countdown in Manchester, and presenting The Gadget Show in Birmingham.
Riley was paired with professional dancer Pasha Kovalev, and the couple began a romance after the show. They married in 2019 and have two daughters. Despite her lack of dance skills, Riley said she and Kovalev still enjoy dancing socially when travelling, visiting salsa clubs around the world.
Kovalev left Strictly in 2018 after reaching the final with Ashley Roberts. He told Heat magazine it was the 'right moment' to move on, adding that the hardest part was saying goodbye to celebrity partners each year. He joked that Riley was part of his 'Strictly contract'.
