Rachel Riley opens up about marriage woes with husband Pasha Kovalev

The TV stars have been married since 2019 and have two young children

Rachel Riley has detailed how difficult it can be to spend quality time with her husband Pasha Kovalev due to their busy schedules.

The Countdown star, 37, has been married to the ex-Strictly Come Dancing professional dancer since 2019. They share two young children together.

Riley described herself and her partner as “ships that pass in the night” and said that date night “feels like a million miles away”.

Speaking toThe Sun over the weekend, the TV presenter said they only have “a rare date night because he’s going to be away for quite a long time”.

“But when you first get together, if they’re away for three months and you’ve only been together a month, it’s a big deal,” she said. “But when you’ve been together the best part of decade and you can see a future of how ever many more decades that you get together, it kind of changes your perspective.”

She explained that having her children, Maven, two, and Noa, one, keeps her busy and they “will see [Kovalev] here and everywhere when he’s around”.

“We’re ready to go and see friends that we’ve not seen in a while and we accidentally arranged to go to Brighton the same weekend that he’s doing his show in Brighton, that’s quite nice,” Riley continued.

“I need to be more organised to see what days he [is] off – I’m juggling so many things.”

Kovalev is currently getting ready for his musical theatre debut, as he is starring in La Bamba! Musical this August and September. The new musical is going on tour until December.

Riley added that Kovalev was also recently working on choreography for a film in Romania for five weeks, further taking up his calendar.

Rachel Riley, with her husband Pasha Kovalev, after she became a Member of the Order of British Empire for services to Holocaust Education, during an investiture ceremony at Windsor Castle on July 11, 2023 (Getty Images)

“It’s nice to have date nights, especially as we can be ships that pass in the night, especially when you have kids as well,” the mathematician said.

“It been busy, it’s been different, but everything is always in flux. It would be nice, once I’m not feeding the baby and picking her up, maybe we could even have a night together, but that feels a million miles away at the moment.”

However, both she and Kovalev know that their current phase of parenthood is temporary and they are currently “enjoying this phase of having little ones”.

“When the kids get old and move out, you’ve still got each other and we value that and we look forward to that when we can get back to that but also we don’t feel time constrained,” she said.

Riley and Kovalev first met in 2013, when the presenter became a competitor in Strictly and was partnered up with Kovalev. They married in 2019 in Las Vegas.

Prior to her marriage to Kovalev, Riley was married to Jamie Gilbert, who she met while studying at Oxford University. They married in 2012 but split up 16 months later.

Speaking to GQ in 2019, Riley denied that the so-called “Strictly curse” did not contribute to the end of her first marriage. The term is used to suggest that participating on the BBC dance competition threatens the status of the relationship competitors are in when they sign up.

It comes after several high-profile separations and relationships emerged from Strictly pairings, including Louise and Jamie Redknapp’s split in 2016 and Seann Walsh and Katya Jones’ romance in 2018.

But Riley said: “No. I’m still friends with my ex-husband. He’s great, he’s a brilliant guy. We were together since I was 19 and it wasn’t right… What Strictly did give me was distance – because I was away from home in Birmingham, Salford, Borehamwood.

“It was the emotional distance I needed to break away.”