Television star Rachel Riley has admitted she doesn’t have warm feelings towards Strictly Come Dancing despite the fact that it led to her meeting her husband, professional dancer Pasha Kovalev, 45, with whom she shares two daughters. Rachel, 39, told comedian Russell Howard on his podcast ‘Russell Howard’s Five Brilliant Things’ that although so many positives had come from the show, she had also suffered mental health issues because of it.
Rachel explained: “I got PTSD from it so I don’t really have warm feelings. I have warm feelings towards Pasha and my kids, but not necessarily the show. That’s a whole other therapy session.”
Rachel’s comments come after a series of controversies hit the popular BBC programme, including accusations from ex-contestant Amanda Abbington, which the broadcaster investigated.
Amanda had complained that professional dance partner Giovanni Pernice’s behaviour was “unnecessary, abusive, cruel and mean” during rehearsals.
Following a nine-month investigation, the BBC upheld some of her complaints, but cleared her dance partner of the more serious allegations, and issued an apology to the actor.
Discussing her time on Strictly, Rachel, who is currently challenging herself to swim with fearsome ocean predators in ITV’s Shark! Celebrity Infested Waters, admitted that she had undergone therapy in order to help her overcome some anxiety around performing.
She said: “I had it the first time when I was on Strictly, and I had rapid behavioural therapy, CBT because I got stage fright and within two sessions, I’d never done it in my life…
“He, Michael, spent like an hour getting to know me and the way my brain worked and then responded to that. It worked, I had a goal of getting an eight, and if I got an eight, I had to be proud of it.
“And then my last show, I got two eights and then I got voted off. I did better than I was hoping for in my best scenario.”
Rachel Riley and Pasha Kovalev
It was through Strictly back in 2013 that Rachel met her now-husband Pasha. Their romance flourished soon after competing in the series, and they eventually got married in Las Vegas in 2019.
Earlier this year, soon after her sixth anniversary, Rachel revealed that whilst they had gotten married in Las Vegas, that Pasha had popped the question in somewhere a little different.
She told Sunday Brunch: “We were going to Vegas anyway to see Robbie Williams and the week before we were standing in Market Street in Manchester right between Primark and the bins and Pasha said ‘shall we get married while we’re there?’.”