Rachel Riley
| Rachel Riley | |
|---|---|
| Arithmetician | |
 | |
| First appearance | 12 January 2009 |
| Last appearance | incumbent |
| Appearances | 4,193 |
| Episodes with Rachel Riley | |
Rachel Annabelle Riley MBE (born 11 January 1986) is a presenter of Countdown. She took over from Carol Vorderman at the start of Championship of Champions XIII on 12 January 2009 pre-Series 60.
Born in Rochford, Riley graduated with an upper second-class master's degree in mathematics from Oriel College, Oxford; the Alma mater of such people as Jon Bentley and Sir Walter Raleigh. She was chosen from around 1,000 applicants when it was decided to cast a previous unknown arithmetician to replace Carol Vorderman. Countdown is her first television experience.
Her role is to put the letters and numbers up on the board, and also to work out any numbers solutions that weren't solved by the contestants.
Contents
Before Countdown
Riley was born just over three years and three months after the show was first broadcast (during the first week of Series 8). She was brought up in Essex and attended Southend High School for Girls. She attended Oriel College at the University of Oxford where she received an upper second-class honours degree in mathematics. After graduating, she started work as a data analyst for a London web design company.
Rise to fame
Rachel was chosen from a large pool of over 1,000 applicants for the job of hostess. The first stage was writing a fifty-word paragraph on why she wanted the job as according to an interview in August 2009, was centred mainly on her interest in the numbers game and starting with "I am one from the top". The second part of the auditioning process was reportedly a screen test. She bought a short purple dress and recorded the clock music on her phone so that she could practice. The news that she passed, came a few days later.
Outside Countdown
She had presented a few other television shows, such as The Gadget Show and It's Not Rocket Science. In October 2010, she presented a tour of the Trafford Training Centre in Carrington on MUTV as she is a keen supporter of Manchester United F.C. She had reportedly been watching games at Old Trafford since the age of 10.
Following in Carol Vorderman's footsteps, she appeared on the eleventh series of Strictly Come Dancing in 2013. Like Vorderman, she was rather terrible – a subject frequently referenced by Jimmy Carr – although she did stay with Pasha Kovalev romantically after they were paired up on the show.
Personal life
Riley met James Gilbert when they were studying together at Oriel College. They were dating for roughly 4.5 years, before they split for nine months between December 2009 and August 2010. Gilbert proposed to her on her 25th birthday and her engagement was announced on the 14 February 2011 edition. They got married on 11 August 2012, then divorced in late-November 2013. From 2014, she started dating Pasha Kovalev who made his first week of appearances on the show during Series 76. The couple proceeded to marry on 30 June 2019. And on 15 December 2019, Riley gave birth to her first daughter of Maven Aria.
Riley announced her second pregnancy in April 2021. Occasionally during Series 84, she announced that she won't be present for that series' finals as she'll be on maternity leave. Dr Anne-Marie Imafidon (who took part in the Black to Front edition in September 2021) took her place for sixty episodes between 13 December 2021 and 14 March 2022. On 5 November 2021, Riley gave birth to her second daughter of Noa.
After giving birth to two daughters, she appeared on-screen in every episode from 15 March 2022 to 21 February 2025. For the following three weeks during Series 91, Dr Tom Crawford stepped in while she worked on another project.
Episodes
| # | Date | Type | Contestant 1 | Score | Contestant 2 | Presenters | Guest | Lex | Max | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cats2 | 24/08/2012 | S | Sean Lock, Rachel Riley & Clarke Carlisle |
50 – 41 | Jon Richardson & Joe Wilkinson |
Jimmy Carr | Rachel Riley | Joe Wilkinson | David O'Doherty | Susie Dent | 83 | |
| Cats41 | 03/07/2015 | S | Rachel Riley, Roisin Conaty & Sean Lock |
44 – 22 | Sarah Millican, Rhod Gilbert & Susie Dent |
Jimmy Carr | Rachel Riley | David O'Doherty | Susie Dent | 71 | ||
| Cats75 | 13/01/2017 | S | Stephen Mangan, Mark Murray & Sean Lock |
45 – 22* | Noel Fielding, Fay Ripley & Rachel Riley |
Jimmy Carr | Rachel Riley | The Brett Domino Trio | Susie Dent | 80 | ||
External Links
- Rachel Riley on Wikipedia.
- Rachel Riley on the Internet Movie Database
- Archive version of Rachel Riley's profile from KBJ Management
- Archive version of the Rachel Riley fan site: [1]
