Countdown favourite Rachel Riley, 33, took her usual spot in front of the Countdown board on the programme this afternoon as she joined host Nick Hewer, 75, and lexicographer Susie Dent, 54, for the latest instalment of letters and numbers games. At the beginning of the show, Nick brought up the topic of fruitarian diets, saying: “I was reading a story the other day about the fruitarian diet. Apparently there’s a woman in Australia,” he continued. “For the last 27 years she’s eaten nothing but fruit and she feels absolutely great.”
Nick reeled off a list food from the woman’s average daily diet, which included half a melon for breakfast, four bananas mid-morning, an avocado for lunch and two mangos for dinner.
He then turned to Rachel to ask her thoughts on the matter.
“It’s not for me,” she said sceptically. “But Pasha, for a while he did a nuts and berries diet.”
Recalling her Strictly Come Dancing star beau’s period of strange dieting, she added: “He really liked it. He said he felt a lot better.
“He’s into looking at weird videos online about health and nutrition,” she revealed.
Rachel and Pasha, 48, first met when she signed up for Strictly Come Dancing in 2013 and they were partnered up.
During her stint on the BBC show, it was confirmed she had split from her husband Jamie Gilbert after 16 months of marriage.
She subsequently struck up a romance with Russian dancer Pasha, going public with their relationship the following year.
In a recent interview with British GQ, the presenter opened up about her split from her ex-husband.
When asked whether she felt Strictly had contributed to the breakdown of their marriage, she replied: “No…
“I’m still friends with my ex-husband,” she continued.
“He’s great, he’s a brilliant guy. We were together since I was 19 and it wasn’t right.
“What Strictly did was gave me distance,” she explained, noting how she had been traveling between Salford, Birmingham and London, filming Countdown, The Gadget Show and Strictly at the time.
“It was the emotional distance that I needed to… break away,” she added.
Rachel said her bond with Pasha wasn’t more than a professional relationship until long after they danced together on the show, saying: “[It was] not for a long time, because I was married when we did Strictly.”
The Countdown star previously told the Daily Express she was in no hurry to tie the knot with Pasha, saying: “I don’t worry about getting married or whether he is taking a long time in the morning or whether he has done the dishes.
“That does not really bother me in the long term. I feel settled.”
Countdown airs weekdays at 2.10pm on Channel 4.
