Rachel Riley
Rachel Riley is a British television personality, best known for succeeding Carol Vorderman as the co-host of Countdown. She also co-hosts the comedy spin-off 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown alongside Jimmy Carr. Rachel has also co-presented Channel 5’s The Gadget Show and ITV’s It’s Not Rocket Science.
Rachel cares about human rights and the environment. She was honoured with an MBE for her work against antisemitism and she has hosted Ukrainian refugees at her home. For the environment, as well as being vegan, Rachel is working with Hello Hydrogen to help the UK meet its target of reaching net zero CO2 emissions by 2050.
Rachel and her husband, Pasha Kovalev, run an entirely vegan household. They both became vegan in 2018 after Rachel struggled with health issues for 10 years. In a 2023 interview, she told MailOnline:
“In 2018, Pasha and I went vegan and there were loads of reasons but I was ill with food, so I cut eggs and diary and I started eating in vegan restaurants and realised the food was really good and we didn’t have to eat meat and then we gave up fish. When I got pregnant, I just took a few food supplements, and it was all good.
I was ill for over 10 years and the doctors were quite useless about it and I gave up some foods and was literally so much better overnight. I didn’t realise how bad I was feeling until I wasn’t feeling bad.”
